Ashes To Ashes, Harold Pinter's 1996 play about inhumanity in the modern world, will make its final Austin bow Dec. 4 at the Public Domain Theatre Company. The Domain's artistic director Robi Polgar directs the drama which began performances Nov. 11.

Rebecca, the lead of Ashes, spends the length of Pinter's 40-some minute play recounting the dream-like experiences of her life for her English professor husband Devlin. She may or may not have lived through a time of human atrocity and borne witness to it, raising frank and brutal questions in the mind of her husband. Pinter, the author of such classics as The Caretaker, The Homecoming and The Dumb Waiter, directed the 1996 premiere of Ashes at London's Royal Court Theatre with Lindsay Duncan and Stephen Rea. Duncan returned to the role of Rebecca for the 1999 American premiere at Off-Broadway's Gramercy Theatre.

1999 Critic's Table Award winner Katherine Catmull stars as Rebecca in the Austin mounting, with Critic's Table nominee David Stahl as Devlin.

Designing Ashes are Marco Noyola (sets), Zach Murphy (lighting), Angela Mirabella (costumes) and Phil Loring (sound).

Tickets are $15-$5 and available by calling (512) 454-TIXS. Performances are at the Vortex Theatre at 2307 Manor Road. *

The spring will bring the Public Domain's mounting of Howard Barker's The Possibilities with dates and location to be announced. In ten short plays, Possibilities takes a look at violence and sexuality with humor and a series of messages that contradict each other. Austin has seen two of Barker's plays in the 1990s: Domain's 1996 production of Scenes From an Execution and The Castle, directed by Polgar in 1991.

-- By Christine Ehren