For the first five or so minutes of Beware of Pity, it feels like a train hurtling past you. Several actors are sharing the narrative, speaking (in German) into microphones, their dialogue intercutting at times, as the surtitles flash past in a relatively small space on the back wall. Your senses are on high alert as you try to follow who is saying what. And then suddenly you are attuned, enveloped by the words and the inventive staging, and swept up in an intense, compelling production.

Beware of Pity is the first production that Simon McBurney, Director of renowned British theatre company Complicité, has created for the equally groundbreaking German company Schaubühne Berlin. It was a huge hit when it premiered in Berlin in 2015 and had a successful season in London in 2017. Now it is being given an exclusive Australian season in Sydney as part of Sydney Festival.

Laurenz Laufenberg and Marie Burchard. Photograph © Jamie Williams

The play...