Duck, Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, London

A far from ugly duckling

Hurling you into the world of Dublin's ladette culture with gleeful fury, Duck opens with an off-stage explosion, after which two drunken teenagers, clad in miniskirts the size of dishrags, totter in on their high heels, incredulous at the act of vengeful vandalism one of them has just perpetrated. To pay him back for leaving her hanging around that afternoon while he did a spot of drug-dealing on a slum estate, Cat has just blown up her odious boyfriend's 4x4, using a cardigan and a lighter. The girls barely have time to catch their breath before they are set on by a couple of jeering yobs ("Are youse queers?"), who decide to show them what men are good for. Cat's best friend, Sophie, manages to break a bottle of Bacardi Breezer and convert it into a deadly weapon. Exit boys, but not before they have bashed her nose in.

Stella Feehily's funny, sharply observed play dramatises the perils of coming of age in a gangster economy where the possibilities of escape that are opening up for young women prove, all too often, to be illusory. Beautifully played by the delectable Ruth Negga, the 19-year-old Cat waters the drinks and chats up the customers in the club owned by her brutish, jealous boyfriend, Mark (Karl Shiels), who has dubbed her Duck on account of her big feet. He is prepared to treat her like a trophy or a skivvy, often in comically quick rotation. As with Wedekind's Lulu, male vanity reduces this girl to a blank screen and projects its clichéd desires upon her. Instead of being patronised as Duck, she is insincerely venerated as Gina Lollobrigida by the rich, sixtysomething male author (the excellent Tony Rohr) who tempts her into selling herself to him for cash and for a temporary taste of how the other half lives. Even her name, Cat - as she is known bySophie (Elaine Symons) - endows her with more cool, urban savvy than she actually possesses.

The world presented here appears to be singularly devoid of suitable, let alone inspiring, role models. Home life for both teenagers is an emotional wasteland of middle-aged corrosion, marginalised men and imperfectly hushed-up marital breakdown. The emotional claustrophobia of it leaves you gasping for air. But never for a second does Feehily's writing succumb to self-pity. In its combination of raw, clear-eyed honesty about a desolate urban landscape and comic resilience of spirit, the play reminds you, at times, of the work of the late Andrea Dunbar, another writer discovered and developed by Duck's director, Max Stafford-Clark.

His highly entertaining production responds to - and enhances - the speed, wit and vigour of the piece, conjuring up seedy nightclub bogs, mean streets and stifling domestic interiors with minimal props on a mostly bare stage.

There's a lovely droll and dark sequence where, in smooth succession, Cat is seen sharing a bath with her rich, dishonest lover and then with the boyfriend who, by premeditated degrees, turns from fondling to fury. It's in this scene that the girl comes to appreciate that the word "duck" is directly related to "ducking", a form of punitive immersion historically reserved for insubordinate women, and also a verb meaning to dodge, evade or (more tantalisingly) escape.

To 10 January (020-7565 5100)