The start of a new relationship often also signals the beginning of its end. Never more so than when you are a teenager falling in love for the first time, and the whole world seems brighter and more intense. But what if what your feelings are not reciprocated? What if you are trying to make somebody the person you want them to be, rather than allowing them to be the person they really are?
Two 13-year-olds meet on the roof of an east London tower block one New Year's Eve as fireworks explode in the sky. Lili, a potential 2012 swimming contender, has seen Yaz before: she has watched her dancing alone in the block opposite. She's a bit of a voyeur, and a little bit in love. For two years the girls do everything together. But while Yaz is hiding the bruises on her face, Lili is concealing the bruises on her heart. She misreads the signals, and in their GCSE year, the girls' ties of place and shared experience begin to loosen as they face their divergent futures.
David Lane's two-hander maps the girls' relationship with intensity, in writing that is flecked with everyday poetry. It's not a sophisticated play, but it's one that takes you back to being a teenager, when everything mattered so much. The production takes a while to find its stride and match the heightened realism of the script. But the strange sense of emotional charge and dislocation is beautifully underscored by Ed Thomas's music. Amy Costello (Lili) and Rachel McKenzie (Yaz) are both terrific as the girls, one of whom can't let go of her map of the world, while the other cuts free.
At the Rich Mix, London (020-7613 7498), on 27 February. Then touring.
