A theme is emerging at the Ustinov, where the playful mind games of Florian Zeller’s hits The Father and The Mother are also evident in this odd and oddly compelling play by the French-Canadian writer Catherine-Anne Toupin. It taps into a disquieting sense of the uncanny. Watching it is akin to experiencing deja vu, or being trapped in a bizarre dream whose meanings glimmer tantalisingly then sink back into the soup of the unconscious.
Alice (Lindsey Campbell) and Ben (Sean Biggerstaff) have been living in their new apartment for six months, and all is not well. He’s a doctor working long hours and she is clearly depressed following what appears to be a terrible tragedy. She keeps hearing the cry of a baby. But what happened to it? Did it ever exist and might it exist now?
Things take a surreal turn when Juliette (Maureen Beattie on outrageous comic form), from the identical but mirror-image apartment across the hall, bulldozes her way into Alice and Ben’s lives with her silky-smooth husband (Guy Williams) and oddball son (Dyfan Dwyfor). There is something comical and creepy about this trio, and the moments of pure farce escalate as confessions and inappropriate party games take place in the lounge and trysts occur in the kitchen.
Or do they? Can we believe that anything we see is really happening, or are the events we witness filtered through the distorted reality of mental illness? The play keeps us guessing with a thriller-like glee right to its ambiguous final moments.
Michael Boyd’s production, which tours to the Bush in London and the Traverse in Edinburgh, generates growing unease amid the comic capers. It could be more heightened still, playing up the wired, sinister strangeness of the scenario. The acting is a joy, every performance a winner, with Campbell brilliant as Alice, whose life and sense of self fractures like a cracked mirror.
• At Ustinov theatre, Bath, until 19 March. Box office: 01225 448 844. At Bush theatre, London, 23 March to 16 April. Then at Traverse, Edinburgh, 19 April to 7 May.
