Right Now, Ustinov Theatre, Bath

FEW plays truly make you think beyond stage door, leave you grappling to untangle meanings, mulling over sentences or running through entire scenes over and over hunting for clues.

In this, Quebecoise writer Catherine-Anne Toupin’s Right Now is a refreshing, if at times unsettling, anomaly.

The psychological drama, which premiered this week at the Ustinov Theatre, is a punch in the face for UK theatre and, to some extent, audiences, tossing us piecemeal hints only to take back everything we thought we knew, peeling away what we assumed to be real to reveal chaos.

It has been a harrowing six months since Alice and Ben moved into their new flat. They are navigating the aftermath of losing a child – Alice remains haunted by the infant’s cries and is drowning in grief. Now their neighbours, Juliette, Gilles and their adult son François, are desperate to get beyond the door, gradually worming their way into their life.

Innocent invitations for drinks and dancing turn into deeply intrusive encounters, intimate revelations and disturbing role reversals.

As Alice’s mind unravels (superbly played by Lindsey Campbell), and with it the foundations of reality, we are left questioning everything scene, encounter, motive.

The cast are masterful in this tense huis clos. Maureen Beattie’s performance as Juliette in particular deserves praise. At times bBewildering, comically out of touch and ferociously determined, she is a woman hell-bent on rewriting a past she cannot bear.

The decision to lend the characters a Scottish accent is astute, an inspired reminder and transposition of the regional lilt of French Canada for British audiences.

At times too close for comfort, Right Now is always a step ahead of us, toying with our perceptions, revelling in heightened emotions and barely-contained mania.

The final scene is the coup de grace, truly pushing the envelope for new writing.

MARION SAUVEBOIS