Murder's double twist

Jennifer Farmer's intense and heartfelt drama is an examination of two women brought together by grief, with the twist that one is the mother of a murder victim, and the other the mother of the murderer.

The audience walks in to see four people relaxing on a Texan beach - a paradoxical picture postcard of hedonistic happiness. Two middle-aged women - one black, one white - recline in bright costumes as if defiantly recapturing their teenage years, while two genuine teenagers, a white girl and a black boy, gaze out at the auditorium with appropriate moodiness.

Artistic director Paul Higgins takes the helm for this production, which squeezes every ounce of the verbal richness from Farmer's writing, even if the accents and structure are on the wobbly side.

The great dramatic challenge is the fact that time divides the middle-aged women and the teenagers in more ways than one: the teenagers are taking the sea air on the night of the murder, while the women are sitting in the sand on the night that the boy is executed for the murder.

There's no critical spoilsporting going on here: for the power of the play is in the sense of the inescapable and terrifyingly claustrophobic emotions that grip both couples.

A greater sense of sexual chemistry between Darren Hart's far-too-gentle Joe and Lauren Fales's impressive but over-icy Kelly would have lifted an evening that ultimately overpowers through the inchoate rage and despair of Nichollette Collins and Paddy Navin as mothers on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Breathing