THE need for expression and the right to an individual voice link these two plays, each rooted in Greek mythology.

Such principles will strike a chord with the teenage core of two productions presented by York Youth Theatre's senior groups (aged 16 to 25), because theatre is one such outlet for those needs and rights.

Dictation, by York writer Mike Kenny, transfers the ancient tragedy of Sophocles's Antigone into a comprehensive school somewhere in Britain (northern in this instance). The setting is not far into the future, but also not far removed from Grange Hill or John Godber's Teechers.

Dress code is punk-customised white shirts with ties sewn into the cotton in myriad patterns, and how Vivienne Westwood would love this look, the one form of individuality in a school run with a zero tolerance regime by head teacher Creon (Henry Raby).

In a story of fatalities in the playground, and the ultimate consequence of a girl's suicide (Emma Thomas's Antigone), Kenny's play is a searing call for target-led, performance-table education to open up to greater creativity, flexibility and humanity.

Brian Higginson's cast (the less experienced of the two companies) embraces that theme with gusto; Chloe Willett's harassed Messenger and Alice Gardiner's Supply Teacher lead the eye-catching cameos; and Ivan Stott's rap revamps of playground songs pump up the Greek chorus volume.

Timberlake Wertenbaker's The Love Of The Nightingale is the more complex work, a tale of rape, tongue removal and revenge first staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1986. Based on the myth of Philomele and adapted from Sophocles's lost play, Tereus, and Ovid's Metamorphoses, it explores how violence erupts in people silenced for too long, and how we may be complicit if we do nothing in response.

Ivan Stott's live music responds superbly to the story spinning ever more out of control around the axis of new bride Procne (Frances Brinklow), duplicitous husband Tereus (John Holt Roberts) and his destructive passion for sister-in-law Philomele (Sukie Chapman). Sarah Brigham's cast captures the sense of confusion and questioning of right and wrong in a play that chimes with the current mess in Iraq.

Dictation and The Love Of The Nightingale, York Youth Theatre, February 18-19 7pm. Box office: 01904 623568

Updated: 11:14 Friday, February 18, 2005