Robert’s moth­er Olivia has died unex­pec­tedly and he’s returned from New York for her funer­al. His grand­moth­er Joan is pleased he’s back as she’s dev­ast­ated by her daughter’s death. Joan has been a big part of Robert’s life since his fath­er Tofi walked out before he was born. A little bit of cour­age will get them through the funer­al and the wake…until Tofi arrives to pay his respects. All bets are off as Joan releases years of resent­ment.

Vic­tor Rodger has writ­ten a fast paced play which is an explor­at­ory roller­coast­er of love and hate. Insults fly and too much inform­a­tion (accord­ing to the char­ac­ters) is shared. The main per­pet­rat­or is Joan played by Lisa Har­row mak­ing her Wel­ling­ton stage debut. Har­row is an exper­i­enced act­or with a long career on stage and screen and this shows in how she por­trays the two sides of Joan – unapo­lo­get­ic strong-minded diva and grief-filled moth­er. She deliv­ers vicious lines with spir­it and great com­ic tim­ing. The tar­get of her vit­ri­ol is absent fath­er Tofi, played by Jerome Leota with a care­ful delib­er­ate man­ner. He gives Tofi a slip­pery gen­tle­ness that changes just when you think you’ve got a handle on who the char­ac­ter is. New­comer Marco Alosio is grand­son Robert. Alosio exter­n­al­ises his character’s anxi­ety as he con­stantly fid­gets with his jack­et or walks around rest­lessly. He’s at his best dur­ing some of the later scenes where he’s fight­ing to keep con­trol.

Dir­ect­or Jane Yonge sets up some visu­ally lovely scenes and has worked to ensure the cast make the most of the quick-fire com­ic dia­logue. The audi­ence responds by sit­ting on the edges of their seats, or by lean­ing as far back as pos­sible as if to get fur­ther away from the racist insults on stage. There’s a lot of laughter and some gasps and hisses. Sean Coyle has designed a beau­ti­ful set with wood pan­el­ling floor to wall and shiny black sides. Bare bulbs hang from the roof as part of the light­ing design from Jen­nifer Lal which turns the set from a home to a del­ic­ate chapel to a soul­less hall. The seat­ing in Circa One has been rearranged and rein­forces the chapel-like atmo­sphere. (I really like this con­tex­tu­al­isa­tion of the play. Also, at open­ing night we were greeted by a woman (pro­du­cer Tanea Heke) dressed in black just as we would at a funer­al – although I’m not sure wheth­er this was delib­er­ately part of fram­ing the per­form­ance or a cour­tesy for the unusu­al-for-Circa-open­ing-night crowd.) Alex Sipahio­glu has designed the sound which links scenes togeth­er and provides some of the laughs.

Please do not miss this one. It’s mag­ni­fi­cent and should only get bet­ter.