IN a comeback comparable with England's restored World Cup hopes, the RSC at Stratford continues to ride the crest of a wave with its latest offering at The Swan.

The Roman Actor, by Philip Massinger, is the fourth in a season of five rarely performed plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries and, as with Eastward Ho! before, you are moved to wonder why.

Rome, under the Emperor Domitian, has sunk to new depths of degradation. Citizens fear for their lives at the hands of the decadent Caesar who has styled himself a God. Infatuated with Domitia, he forces her Roman husband Lamia to sign a bill of divorce on pain of death and installs her as his consort.

But her lust for power and concupiscence are more than equal to his and her pursuit of an actor Paris, which is revealed to the emperor by her enemies, provokes Domitian's unravelling and eventual death.

Regarded as Massinger's finest play, it explores the tension between individual freedom and collective rule and the nature of theatricality but ultimately grips as a drama of sexual jealousy and naked power.

Sher is excellent and in a fine cast, ably directed by Sean Holmes, Anna Madeley, as Domitia, and Joe Dixon, as Paris, shine. The set is simple, but effective, and the music even better. PW