ROCK idolatry is a mixture of fantasy, self-deception, escapism and parasitical devotion. The Heart in Hiding - by two up-and-coming stars, writer/poet Glyn Maxwell and director Andrea Brooks - is an extraordinary piece that doesn't just pose awkward questions about the nature of the relationship between idol, fan, and the public but gets right inside its fevered, narcissistic, self-destructive head.

Moray Treadwell (he can be seen at Perth in very different guise in the New Year in the old thriller, Night Must Fall) is a charismatic, crack-voiced, rock star, Aidan, who one night disappears in the middle of a concert.

Like some twentieth-century ape man, Aidan's music is the kind calculated to make every adolescent young female feel he's talking just at her. But is he really? And does he want that anyway?

Pursued into oblivion by three women and a hard-nosed hack out for the story of the century, Brooks's flashy production with its pounding score by rock composer Charlie Round-Turner and movement by the great Lynn Seymour, sometimes comes close to being swamped in its own emotional and musical intensity. Eva Marie Bryer's febrile speed freak, Sash, for example, appears on the point of combustion at any moment.

But the play grows in power as Sash, confronted with the physical reality of her idol finds it too hot to handle and the quartet's battle for Aidan explodes into open warfare.

Fascinating as an exploration of possession, the motor of money and identity, Maxwell's free verse, fiery epitaph - like the work of Irving Welsh - captures a culture and whole way of being with an authenticity that is electric.