We have been asked not to reveal a climactic event in Amy Herzog’s play. This is rather a pity, not because of any need or compulsion to blow the gaff but rather the opposite, because the request suggests that enjoyment of the piece is dependent on a narrative surprise of the “He’s been a ghost all along” variety.

Indeed, the word “enjoyment” itself rather misrepresents things. Herzog allows the marital relationship of late-twenties Americans Abby and Zack to present itself gradually, Michael Longhurst directs with a discreet touch, and the very title comes from the funky district of north-eastern Paris in which the couple live... but, man, it’s grim. We are sure from the kick-off that their respective snarks and insecurities – Abby’s generated, perhaps, in part by coming off antidepressants, Zack’s exacerbated by his own dependency on marijuana; hers woundingly articulated, his often suspiciously suppressed – will not be overcome. My use of the words “present itself” just now was a blatant euphemism for “disintegrate”. This is one of those definitively doomed marriages, and the play’s 95 minutes are not the stuff of Yuletide diversion.

Its potency is not in the account of how things go all to hell, but rather why they do: the slow but inexorable uncovering of the truth behind Zack’s job with Médecins sans Frontières, Abby’s living in the shadow of her mother’s death, and the pair’s awkward, cultural-imperialist relationship with their downstairs neighbours and Senegalese-heritage landlords. Which of the couple will fall completely to pieces, which will haemorrhage an unbearable, game-changing secret? I’m not blurting any spoilers when I say that in both cases it’s both. We end up feeling both relieved that our own relationships, however train-wrecky, have never been quite this bad, and yet also realising how chillingly close they have come in so many ways.

Imogen Poots, making a rare stage appearance, flakes convincingly as Abby; James Norton as Zack holds most of it in until his psychological dam bursts. Malcolm Kirby and Faith Alabi have a brief but surprisingly important Francophone coda. It makes for powerful viewing, but as I say, perhaps not the thing if what you’re after is a slice of seasonal good cheer.

Written for the Financial Times.