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| Louisa Stevens and Stephen Cunningham in Bash |
A WHOLE world of atrocity opens up in Neil LaBute's Bash - and maybe it is the very darkness of the story-telling which accounts for the limited audience in the Abbey Theatre Studio.
But that is the missing audience's loss because two actors carry this play which is part of the Company of Ten's mini season and both their performances are absolutely sensational.
Bash comprises two monologues and a duologue and they are themed around ordinary people who commit murder. There is no sense of redemption or catharsis - merely a recounting of the events which resulted in the murders, in two cases of children and in the third a gay man.
Of the three, the third play A Gaggle of Saints is in some ways the least gruelling because the girl is so unaware of her fiance's activities when he and his friends come across a gay man in a public toilet in Central Park. Her reaction gives a lightness of touch which is missing from the first two - Medea Redux and Iphigenia in Orem - but in many ways this is the most distressing aspect of the play.
Louisa Stevens and Stephen Cunningham both direct and perform the four parts in the three plays. That they manage to remember their lines in a monologue each and a duologue is an incredible achievement in itself.
But what makes their performances so mesmerising is the skill with which they tackle the plays. Louisa is the woman in Medea Redux whose relationship with her high-school teacher when she was 13 ultimately leads to the murder of her teenage son many years later.
The life of the woman gradually unfolds in front of the audience and a range of emotions is revealed from the happy schoolgirl to the bitter and cold murderess of her own child.
If that is not gruelling enough, Stephen Cunningham is the Young Man in Iphigenia in Orem whose initial "hail fellow, well met" attitude to an unseen guest deteriorates as he recounts how a loving father had allowed his baby daughter to die.
A Gaggle of Saints appears almost to be light relief after the interval as the young lovers John and Sue recall how they came to attend a party - part of the explanation of the bash of the title - until John's darker and morally-bankrupt side is revealed in Stephen's excellent performance.
There is one more opportunity to see Bash on Saturday evening and, while it might not be the most comfortable evening's entertainment, it should not be missed.
Tickets for Bash can be obtained from the Abbey Theatre box office on 01727 857861.
MADELEINE BURTON
© Herts Advertiser 2006. Reproduced by permission