Most striking, though, is how densely layered the whole thing is. Voices drift in from the distant past and the literal beyond, crackling out of a TV set or issuing from a cassette-player. The piece reads like a cross-section of a microcosm, with the prose inserts making you aware not only of the shadowy underworld of the performance space but also of the world outside it – trains pass by overhead, audience members get up and leave, even a few of the performers creep out through back-exits – and of the world outside the text itself, i.e. that of you, the reader. In this way, Lyacos allows you to peek through the gaps; you don’t see all the way down, but you do get an idea of just how far down it goes.