Catherine Trieschmann's likable American play begins with its 14-year-old heroine reading a tale of her own devising. The play itself has the tone, alternately wry and quizzical, of a 1950s New Yorkerish short story. I was reminded of Carson McCullers - like Trieschmann, a native of Georgia fascinated by lonely, female outsiders.
Trieschmann's heroine, Laney, has has dystonia, which gives her back a temporarily crooked shape. Her father is in a mental institution. And her mother, who has relocated to small-town Mississippi in an attempt to rebuild her life, is rabidly possessive. Given all this, it's hardly surprising that lonely Laney finds solace in the company of a beaming, evangelical preacher's daughter, Maribel, with whom she persuades herself she's in love.
The play observes its three female solitaries with a wonderfully amused compassion; however freakish they seem to others, they are all trying to make sense of their lives. Maribel, while dreaming of sex, tends to begin conversations with: "So, have you found your church yet?" Laney compensates for her misshapen back by living in a world of Faulkneresque fantasy and imagining herself a "holiness lesbian". Even her rationalist mum, Elise, makes lists of ideal partners, starting with Daniel Day-Lewis. But, while Trieschmann shows a precise understanding of the female heart, her play never quite transcends its well-carpentered neatness.
What makes it is so watchable is the acting. Director Mike Bradwell, celebrating his 10th anniversary at the Bush, gets faultless performances from his three players. Amanda Hale is especially good as Laney: her squirming embarrassment at her mother's monopolistic affection is as striking as her reluctant acceptance of religion to win Maribel's heart. Debbie Chazen captures the chubby goodness and sexual curiosity of Maribel as she announces, with great precision: "You can be fingered and still be a virgin." And Suzan Sylvester conveys perfectly the confusion of Elise, a mother who treats her daughter as both "my flopsy" and the victim of her cutting intelligence. It's a play of immense psychological shrewdness - even if Trieschmann, like her heroine, needs to liberate herself from her literary role models.
· Until June 3. Box office: 020-7610 4224.
