With stories of child abduction and murder dominating the headlines, Loretta, a middle-aged mother, is halfway round the Disney Store one day when she realises that 35 years previously she might have been the victim of sexual abuse. Before long she is down at the police station leaking memories, talking non-stop at her troubled teenage daughter and letting all her fears pour out as if the frozen has thawed and unleashed an unstoppable flood of words and submerged feelings.
Theatre 503 - purveyor of new writing that is young, idiosyncratic and urgent - delivers the goods again with this intriguing debut from new writer Duncan Macmillan. It is a little play about our age of anxiety and the culture of confession and therapy that has both the ring of truth and a real spark of originality. It is made more interesting and is all the more of an achievement because it must be quite a stretch for the young, male Macmillan to get inside the head of a middle-aged woman on the brink of breakdown. He does it with a mixture of grace and steeliness.
In fact there are two firsts worth celebrating here: new director Clare Lizzimore's production is a little wonder too, full of precision and subtlety as it unlocks the teasing structure of the play that cleverly breathes new life into the monologue form. As memory and dampness pervade the stage, it sometimes seems as if the whole world has sprung a leak. Sometimes it seems as if the whole world is weeping.
It is a show that not only makes great demands on Holly de Jong who plays the inward-looking Loretta, but on the other actors too, and they rise to the challenge beautifully - giving without exception emotionally nuanced and complex performances even though they can't get a word in edgeways.
· Until March 20. Box office: 020-7978 7040.
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