Luce (Southwark Playhouse)

Great expectations can become a heavy burden – whether you're bucking prejudice or living up to a pressure to be perfect. In JC Lee's tightly-crafted yet fascinatingly slippery play, the central character of Luce has both those weighing on his strapping, 17-year-old shoulders.

Luce was raised in an undisclosed, war-torn African country, before being adopted by a right-on white American couple at the age of seven. He's flourishing: academically brilliant, a star of the football team, popular, handsome, and apparently morally upstanding too. Everyone loves Luce; everyone wants the best for him – and from him.

We learn all this in the pre-amble of the opening scene, where a school teacher, Mrs Carter, has called in Luce's mum, Amy. After reading an unexpectedly graphic, pro-violence account of a right-wing terrorist by Luce, the teacher checked his locker – and found a bag of illegal, dangerous fireworks. Knowing Luce's exemplary record – and aware of what he means as a symbol for the school – Mrs Carter makes allowances; the pair, with Luce's dad Peter, tip-toe round these warning signs with the best of intentions, but inadvertently start a string of small deceptions.

Luce has only high-minded scorn for such lies and hypocrisy. He denies ownership of the fireworks and subtly implies that people are only jumping to sinister conclusions because of his troubled background. But he's also fired up with a righteous anger about the expectations placed on him: to be a "flag" for integration, a shining example of overcoming adversity. He's just not allowed to fail like normal kid. Director Simon Dormandy was attracted to the play because of the way it explores the pressures placed on high-achieving young men; he should know, having been a drama teacher at Eton till 2012.

And Lee keeps us guessing: is Luce a damaged terrorist-in-waiting, or just an arrogant, angry kid too smart for his own good? Certainly, he's no put-upon innocent: his scenes with Mrs Carter are master-classes in how to menacingly run rings round someone without ever incriminating yourself.

Indeed, the whole play is deeply concerned with the unreliability of words, of what is said vs what is meant: conversations constantly slide, their meaning and intent lost or disguised through retelling and reframing. Lee also expertly nails the jargon of education and parenting ("differences that could be disadvantages in certain circumstances"; "we need to change our parenting frequency"). This psycho-babble is further skewered when the hyper-intelligent Luce begins to adopt it for his own ends.

Such a talky play relies on subtle, precise acting, and Dormandy delivers it, his direction keeping things steely and gripping. Natasha Gordon's Mrs Carter shakes with both frustration and fear, while Nigel Whitmey provides exasperated humour as the dad, and Mel Giedroyc proves there's more to her than baking puns as a concerned but blinkered mum. Martins Imhangbe has the necessary power and confidence as Luce, although his grins chill. Elizabeth Tan has just one scene as a classmate, but it's the most upsetting of all, as her teenybopper vacuity gives way to a vivid monologue of teenage boys passing her round like a hunk of meat.

Since penning the play in 2012, Lee has gone on to write for HBO on Looking and Girls; lets hope TV doesn't keep him away from the stage for too long.

Luce runs at the Southwark Playhouse until 2 April.