Shelagh Stephenson has written a haunting, taut and timely play about grief and loss in contemporary culture. Lia and Nick's 20-year-old son Adam disappeared in south-east Asia five months ago, and not knowing what happened to him is "eating their hearts away". Lia consults a spiritualist; her father, a retired MP, ropes in a documentary film-maker.
They get strange phone calls where no one is on the line. And then, out of nowhere, a young man appears at a foreign embassy, amnesiac, matching Adam's description. But in a fabulous end-of-act-one twist, Lia and Nick don't recognise him. He is not their son.
To give away much more would be unsporting; in the second act, let's just say that Stephenson ups the ante even more, as the possible scenarios about who this "Adam" is unspool with horrific credibility. This is a profound exploration of the interplay of personal and cultural identity in today's world, examining such issues as media exploitation, identity theft, the afterlife and the emotional void left after mass disaster (written pre-tsunami, the play still resonates in its aftermath).
It is a shame the script has not received a world premiere production to match its excellence. The play takes place in virtually empty rooms (Lia gives away her possessions in an attempt to cleanse herself). The point is, of course, that they are full of emotions, grief and expectation. In Ben Barnes' production, the rooms remain arid, the actors unable to convince us of their extreme situations or conflicted feelings. Characters talk a lot about the blazing heat, but even the beams of Rupert Murray's strong and often gorgeous lighting cannot dispel the coldness.
Ingrid Craigie fares best as the virtuous, haunted Lia, but both she and Mark Lambert as Nick give us too much strained surface and not enough of the turmoil underneath. Amy Marston is irritatingly caricatured as the vixen-producer Joanna, but reveals towards the end that she is capable of greater emotional conviction. Christopher Adlington hints at the layers of innocence and potential corruption in Adam, but again, it's all too much on one level. This excellent script awaits its consummation elsewhere.
· Until April 16. Box office: 003531 878 7222.
