The premise of Sam Steiner’s three-hander is so slight you have to work hard to remember what it is. Cath has a bizarrely precise awareness of her age; she knows it down to the last minute. At first, you assume she is blessed with some freaky mathematical gift, or perhaps suffering from a neurotic compulsion. The actual reason is that she is getting perilously close to the age her mother died – painfully young – in the very spot she now finds herself.
As she sorts through old possessions in an abandoned air-raid shelter, now owned by another family, Cath is surrounded by memories of the past. She is also haunted by the thought of passing 32, and living a life with an outline no longer defined by the previous generation.
At least, that’s what you assume she’s being haunted by, but Steiner’s script is so elliptical you’re lucky if she makes it to the end of a sentence, let alone a coherent thought. The text is all ums, errs and missing nouns, which, in Ed Madden’s attractive production for Walrus theatre, creates a convincing conversational air but makes you wonder if what’s left unsaid has subtextual meaning or is just left unsaid.
It’s a suspicion encouraged by the actors, graduates of the Phoebe Waller-Bridge school of facial mannerisms, all big grins followed by puzzled expressions and mumbled replies. Impressively, they give the impression that some big revelation is on the cards, as Cath (Rosa Robson), her boyfriend Callum (Euan Kitson) and new occupant Mia (Beth Holmes) exchange their gnomic half-thoughts. But there is only so much enigmatic conversation one can take before deciding there was probably no enigma in the first place.
Even the ping-pong table that dominates the stage fails to generate a good metaphor, though it does lead to the neat idea of having table-tennis balls represent the artefacts of Cath’s past. Several verbal rallies take place as the actors bat the balls back and forth. It’s fun to watch but you wait in vain for the expected observations about competition, defensiveness or collaboration. Spirited enough to keep you interested, the show is too delicate to carry any weight.
• At Underbelly, Cowgate, Edinburgh, until 25 August.
