When Marjorie is attacked by violent would-be rapist Raul in her own home, she looks like a goner. But the tables are turned when she swats him like a wasp and trusses him up like a turkey. What would a smart girl do? Call the cops, of course. Unfortunately Marjorie is all brawn and no brain, and when Raul confesses that this was no opportunistic attack but that he has been stalking her she panics and throws a kettle of boiling water over him.
When Raul further argues that he didn't actually rape her and that lack of evidence will almost certainly mean he will be bailed by the police and probably get off in court, she is terrified that he will be free to come back and fulfil his promise to slash her face. So she takes action, setting about torturing her captive with enthusiasm and ingenuity. By the time her flatmates return from work, the victim has become the oppressor.
William Mastrosimone's inexplicably popular drama has been both a Broadway and West End hit, but a piece that seems just preposterous and unpleasant when seen through the distance of a proscenium arch comes across as downright nasty when it is witnessed close up. Nasty, but quite compulsively watchable - even in a production as lazy as this one, which doesn't even make it clear if the setting is England or the US, and keeps making references to banoffee pie when the tart on full view is clearly M&S chocolate.
Extremities is a play that constantly tries to take the moral high ground, pointing out that before a woman is believed in court she has to be dead on arrival. Actually it is less interested in debate than in sensationalism. It is instinctively a tabloid play, a bit like watching the Sun editorialising about the rights of women while displaying them naked. Traditionally, the play has been seen as a vehicle for a woman: Farrah Fawcett-Majors and Helen Mirren are just two of the stars who have played Marjorie. Here it is Darren Day who gets top billing as Raul - curious, as he spends most of the play inert, blindfolded and bound. Still, in an implausible scenario, he is plausible enough as the silky-tongued rapist who succeeds in making all women sound like hysterical harpies.
· Until June 21. Box office: 08700 600 100.
