The interesting thing about Anupama Chandrasekhar's fast-moving play - first seen Upstairs at the Royal Court, and now given a main stage revival - is the absence at the heart of it. The absence is that of 15-year-old Deepa, an A-grade student living in Chennai, who carries all the hopes of her struggling single mother Malini. Deepa is suspended for having sex with a fellow student. Even then Malini clings to false optimism, insisting that her daughter must have been exchanging CDs rather than bodily fluids. But with a video posted on the internet, and journalists and outraged citizens besieging their home, Deepa becomes the most notorious girl in India. We never see Deepa, although the rest of the world has pored over images of her.
It is a clever dramatic ploy that only increases the sense of double standards persisting in an India that is part of the technological revolution, but where traditional social values remain embedded. Chandrasekhar makes the point, with the lightest of touches, that societal attitudes keep Deepa gagged. The most shocking thing is how the mother - living proof of the struggle to be a single mother without male support - turns on her own daughter. There is no female solidarity for transgressors here. Men, too, are either absent, inadequate or downright creepy.
It is very nicely acted - particularly by Lolita Chakrabarti as the desperate Malini. If it comes across as an Indian Alan Ayckbourn play, there is absolutely no shame in that.
· Until July 19. Box office: 020-7565 5000. Then at the Traverse, Edinburgh (0131-228 1404), from July 31.
