The Mac, Belfast
★★★
Even intimacy has its limits. That may not be your first impression of David and Marian, though, a couple who seem to observe very few boundaries. In their bathroom, they share their morning routine as liberally as the contents of their dreams; washing, shaving, urinating, confiding, taunting. How close and personal? Well, how about Matt Forsythe’s upbeat David, who takes a manful sniff from the toilet and marvels: “I can’t smell the asparagus.” Julie Maxwell’s Marian conducts her own survey. Neither can she. It’s about the only thing so far that seems hidden.
But there are already signs in Jack Thorne’s play, capably directed by Rhiann Jeffrey for Prime Cut in her professional debut, that these individuals are more prisoners than partners. He bristles at the slightest suggestion of Marian’s past lovers, and though the conversation weaves around his upcoming business pitch, her fantasies or his desires, they retreat instinctively from mentions of the past, as though running from it. “Sometimes I don’t know what’s going on in your mind,” he tells her, with the faint worry of someone who thinks he should.
Thorne’s play is entirely concerned with what people reveal and conceal, evasive in its naturalistic dialogue while allowing clues towards something darker to drip out. Set in a fully functioning bathroom, which designer Cait Corkery’s set makes as impersonal and brand spanking new as a shop’s display, its action can feel stilted, but it asks for hair-raisingly intimate performances from Forsythe and Maxwell, who give entirely unselfconscious portrayals of people becoming ever more self-conscious.
A mortifying romantic bath for two, full of prickly miscommunication, leads to a game evoking memories and traumas. That this finally confirms their loss is nowhere near as shocking as the bitter new bonds that are being established between them, shackling together like characters in a Sartre play. “We deserve each other,” she tells him. The title refers to a type of insect, but that is an utterly human sting.
