Intense, dense and completely absorbing, this premiere production of emerging writer Gemma Burwell’s two-hander brings its audience into uncomfortable proximity with a primal mother-daughter drama.

Deborah Jones and Meg Hyeronimus in Gravy. Photo © Abraham de Souza

Staged in the customary traverse, the production is focused on bathtub in which Trisha (Meg Hyeronimus) tends angrily to her Mumma (Deborah Jones). Like Endgame’s Hamm and Clov (and this play reminded me of the Beckett masterpiece in several ways), theirs is a relationship built on tyranny and co-dependency. Mumma takes great pleasure in putting her daughter down. Trish’s duty of care has curdled into a fathomless love/hate.

Where are we? When is this? It’s impossible to say. The two women speak a form of English that seems to have gone awry in isolation. There is no ‘world’ beyond the bathtub and its immediate (waterlogged) surround. Trisha speaks of a young man she fantasies about, a future she might have with him. But will Mumma get to him first? Does he even exist? 

Deborah Jones and Meg Hyeronimus in Gravy. Photo © Abraham de Souza

Directed by Saša Ljubović, this is a very wet but completely watertight production. Lighting (Frankie Clarke) and sound (Zsa Zsa Gyulay and Milo McLaughlin; a warping, bass-heavy Musique concrète concoction) serve the script scrupulously.

The set design and build (James Smithers) is excellent: visually strong and hydraulically sound. It’s best effect creeps up on you, millimetre by millimetre – a perfect demonstration of Aristotle’s principal of hydrostatic equilibrium. 

The acting performances are excellent; the choreography of the action around the tub works superbly in harness with the production’s technical elements. 

A short, dark and daring work of theatre made with exceptional care and skill.

Gravy plays at KXT on Broadway until 28 February.