The thriller has long been in decline as
a stage drama genre. This is odd, as it doesn’t in fact rely on our
seeing crucial events at all, so the screen’s advantage in graphic
portrayal doesn’t count for anything here. Moreover, the form can be
used as a Trojan horse for more profound matters, as it is by Morgan
Lloyd Malcolm in this transfer from the Hampstead Theatre’s downstairs
try-out space.
Middle-class Heather arranges a meeting with down-at-heel, pregnant
Carla. It is almost immediately apparent that they have a history: they
were school friends until Carla suddenly switched to bullying Heather
relentlessly. It is those impulses that Heather now apparently wants to
hire… To say any more would entail major spoilerage, since the
75-minute piece depends on two major plot twists, the first fairly
predictable, the second perhaps much less so. Put it this way: you can
tell from the three dozen-odd butterflies, moths and beetles
wall-mounted in glass cases on David Woodhead’s set that this household
is no stranger to the killing jar.
MyAnna Buring and Laura Donnelly are now both principally screen
actors. Far from hampering them, this fact strengthens their
performances in this 100-seat space: they can pretty much perform as
subtly as for the camera and yet feel a live audience responding to
those little touches. Buring in particular has a wonderfully articulate
square centimetre just between her eyebrows; she doesn’t need to go
into full furrowed-brow mode, but can let the merest pucker speak for
her. Director Tom Attenborough, too, has the exact measure of both the
performance space and his actors’ abilities. Even my inner
hair-splitter was unable to fault either Swedish-born Buring’s Cockney
accent nor my Northern Irish compatriot Donnelly’s Received
Pronunciation.
As the pair’s current relationship and back-story unfold, we find
ourselves watching not just the suspenseful events in real time but
also Lloyd Malcolm’s meditation on what shapes a person: how we may be
conditioned or imprinted by incidents which make no impression at all
on others, and how such dormant traits may be horrifically re-awakened.
To paraphrase the play’s payoff line, these characters and performances
make for a pair of very good bad girls.
Written for the Financial
Times.