Overall very good acting, and the script is well paced, with the two relationships mirroring each other in a neat way, but it doesn’t really push the boundaries on how we think about love and relationships.
The play opens in a hotel bar, where a married plumber in his fifties is having a drink by himself. A young, attractive woman approaches him, starts an unwanted conversation, and makes a very forward proposal to the man. When he confesses to his wife the next morning that he has been unfaithful, the woman is fuelled to take revenge, and the play moves on to examining the love and relationships between two couples, one young, one old.
All four actors put on very fine performances. Benny Young plays the plumber as a gruff, middle-aged man who is happy to go about his normal ways until he is forced to examine his strained relationship with his wife. Ameria Darwish plays the plumber’s wife, resentful and furious at her husband’s infidelity, but also confused about what she can do to feel she has had her due. Owen Whitelaw plays a male escort, confidently strutting around the bedroom, and Cara Kelly plays Tara, bored and desperate to bring passion and self-fulfillment into her life.
Over the course of the play, the two couples realise that they need to be more open and frank in their relationships and that love cannot flourish by itself. If this sounds like the makings of a standard play about domestic love and relationships, that’s because the play is exactly that. Though it is well written, the script doesn’t really probe into the way we love our partners and form relationships in particularly new or inventive ways. The show takes place in the Traverse theatre, on an impressive rotating set. Blasting loud electronic music plays during scene changes in case we forget that this is indeed a new, contemporary play.
There is overall very good acting, and the script is well paced, with the two relationships mirroring each other in a neat way, but it doesn’t really push the boundaries on how we think about love and relationships.
