Play House & Definitely the Bahamas

Synopsis

Sex, work, pregnancy, madness, parents, weird neighbours, cleaning the fridge and dancing - Play House (2011) tells the story, in 13 bravura scenes, of a young couple's attempts to set up home. In Definitely the Bahamas (1987) - with its unsettling mix of comedy and unbearable truth - Frank and Milly relish the visits of Michael, their charming and incredibly successful only child. But what exactly is his relationship to the young student living in their house?

Our Review:

Michael Coveney - 19 March 2012

Martin Crimp was launched as a playwright by the Orange Tree in the 1980s with a series of deft and funny plays, since when his style has toughened into the sinister, disturbing and often ambiguous domestic dramas of recent years.

In this Orange Tree double-bill, marking Crimp’s debut as a director, he pairs one of those early successes – Definitely the Bahamas – with a new piece, Play House; both plays define that transition and reawaken an earlier, freer and more light-hearted mood and mode of writing.

The new play is virtually a jeu d’esprit for a sexy young couple, Simon and Katrina, setting up home, annoying the neighbours, cleaning the fridge, having sex upside down and skirting the madness and spiritual skeletons that stalk Crimp’s later characters.

He is a departmental head of commercial planning, she is a teacher, and they are beautifully pla...

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