Suburban motel purgatory

An alcoholic who's too soft-hearted to make it as a kidnapper, a social worker who gets buried alive and a two-dimensional cheetah are just a few of the warped components that make up George F Walker's snarling black comedy.

Set in a Canadian motel room so claustrophobic it would drive even the most wellhinged individual to murder, Problem Child focuses on an exconvict and an ex-prostitute who are struggling to prove they are capable of bringing up their own baby.

It would be easy to imagine the Coen brothers making a film of Walker's script, which is one of a six-part cycle known as the Suburban Motel plays.

The play derives both its emotional energy and its comedy from the anger expressed by Denise, whose frustration that she cannot get her child back is exacerbated by the fact that her husband, RJ (a nervily agile Trevor White), seems less focused on their own problems than on the scream-to-the-camera confessions of Jerry Springer-style shows.

It is impossible to maintain a detached reaction to the Suspect Package company's provocative production, largely due to the impressive Samantha Coughlan's sympathetically psychotic performance as Denise.

On Janet Bird's anti-atmospheric set, with a wall covered in a kitsch Hawaiian sunset, a queasily pink carpet and fake leatherette chair, Coughlan rants like a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown - yet still manages to convey the love she has as a dysfunctional mother for her child.

The script's main weakness is a somewhat unbelievable plot twist that involves the resurrection of Lydia Parker's prissier-than-thou social worker. Even so, its wickedly cynical take on the notion of redemption in motel purgatory casts a refreshing light on everything from babies to bathroom cleaning.

Problem Child