Bash by Neil LaBute is made up of three one-act plays, connected only by their attention to the domestic darkness of people. Each depicting, differently, how even the most ordinary of us can trip and fall over an ordinary edge. These individual, human stories are told to us directly: the fourth wall has been well and truly discarded, leaving us with absolutely no doubt that these characters are just like us. Both the opening and final pieces are monologues sandwiching a duologue. It poses all the normal threats that monologues have a habit of presenting: the pitfalls of self-indulgence. It can either be the perfect, uninterrupted insight into a character’s journey or an actor’s showcase that neglects to benefit its audience. Sometimes it can be a bit of both.

The first monologue, Iphigenia in Orem, performed by Stephen Gibbons, is exactly that: a bit of both. Gibbons plays an average, middle-management suit, with a wife, kids, estate car and a house somewhere in the commuter belt. He is instantaneously relatable and recognisable, if a little slimy. The crux of his character’s story comes in the form of a split-second decision that is fundamentally life-changing. That decision hammers home how familiar he is to us; we are drawn in by our own knowledge of a pressured decision being made, rightly or wrongly. This familiarity forms the foundations of our attachment to the character, from which point the script begins to slowly incorporate details that are near impossible to empathise with. The monologue hinders on the fact that our attachment to him already exists before the brutal truth of the situation fully unfolds. Gibbons’s performance is full of emotional integrity. He is completely natural and unforced in his depiction of a man who is normal but unlikeable.

Speaking of unlikeable, the duologue that followed missed the mark by a healthy margin. Gibbons has to do a (not so) quick change, in preparation for Gaggle of Saints. The audience are left waiting with admirable patience while scuffling and squabbling can be heard off stage. The pattern of the narrative is similar to the first piece in that it rumbles through naturalism and familiarity at the start, before catapulting shock into the audience. The characterisations in Gaggle of Saints don’t generate enough empathy to enable us to care when the apex is reached. The performances were lacklustre, and in Sarah Purcell’s case, vacant. There was a perpetual overlapping of lines, neither actor seemed to know where they were in the script, or have any respect for the other’s process. They even broke character to exclaim ‘oops’ at their constant mishaps. On occasion lines were forgotten completely and in the mayhem of mistakes characterisation was dropped.

The third and final monologue performed by Purcell picked up the pace. Following the same coax, then shock tactic, you are well and truly drawn in, sympathetically, to her tale. She details the familiar pain of love and heartbreak from the unfamiliar perspective of someone who experienced it with her teacher from the age of 13. The narrative twists and contorts far further than that and Purcell tangles us all up within it. Purcell’s performance is earnest with an interesting level of matter-of-fact, stripped-back emotion. In truth, the tussle of trying to uphold an American accent (and failing) took away her psychological connection to the character and her ability to portray her emotionally (not so Michael Chekhov after all).

I think that if they had left out the duologue, that’s unfinished and shabby, they could have utilised that time to perfect their individual monologues to an even higher standard.

Bash played at Etcetera Theatre. For more information, see the Etcetera Theatre website.