Clara Brennan’s Spine was a gloriously compassionate war cry about how community, libraries and books can save your life. In her latest, a two-hander featuring real-life husband-and-wife team Harriet Walter and Guy Paul, a second edition of Jane Eyre gets a savaging. But like the earlier play this is one about rage, grief and guilt and how we try to find ways to live alone and together, played out over many years and offering a look at the aftermath of the 20th-century wars in south-east Asia and what happens when you bring the war back home.
Boa, a childhood nickname, is a dancer living in New York when she meets her soul-mate, Louis, who at 27 is already a Pulitzer prize-winning war correspondent. She imagines the worst and feels too much; he has seen such horrors that he can barely feel at all. Told through a series of flashbacks, spanning many years, we see them fall in love, face heartbreak and breakdown, move continents, fight, and try to save each other.
The recurring image is of a snake swallowing its own tail. The theme, along with absurdities and the saving graces of art in a catastrophic world, is that we are our histories – global, national and personal – and we need to face up to them to forge new narratives.
Despite some very sparky writing and drily observed witticisms, Brennan’s tale of a highly privileged couple who just can’t be happy until it’s almost too late could all too easily seem prissy and self-indulgent. Boa herself sends up the fact that she rages over suffering children thousands of miles away but also over an imperfectly ripe avocado.
The evening is lifted by Walter and Paul’s passionate, nuanced performances: they dance around each other with extraordinary grace and subtlety, making Boa and Louis rather more mesmerising than they perhaps deserve.
• Until 7 March. For tickets visit theguardianboxoffice.com
