It would be easy to write Andrew Clarke’s Cleanskin off as a play about the self-involved self-imploding, just as Irish critic Vivian Mercier summarised Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot as “a play in which nothing happens, twice.” But in both cases there is something strangely compelling … Like watching a panic attack in slow motion, perhaps.

While Godot traps two determinists in an existential universe, Cleanskin sets a young woman’s existential angst – who am I; why am I here; what is it all about; how do I take the next step? – on an inexorable collision course with a fact of life that will be very determined, if left to its own devices.

Clarke’s text is somewhat redolent of Edward Albee plays like The Zoo Story (1958), A Delicate Balance (1966), The Play About the Baby (1996) in that characters who are in various ways adrift – or trapped by being adrift – preoccupy themselves by talking about past events and/or by talking past each other.

Arianna, played with great fluency by Lucy McCarthny, talks and talks to Brenton (an eloquently passive Josh McGowan) – or is she talking to herself? – not about what she really wants to discuss but about a picnic they had in the park, how they may or may not have met, whether they should stay in or go out … And all the while she’s pouring neat vodkas, topping up his glass, which he drains, and pouring fresh ones for herself, which remain untouched … until they are.  

Brenton’s status in the relationship is uncertain; indeed in existential terms his very existence is called into question, mostly by Arianna’s friend Hannah, hyper-performed by Suzie Halligan. Presumably Halligan and director Jess Old have chosen to amp up her performance because Hannah is desperate to reclaim Arianna as the good time drinking, boy-scoring (or not), getting wasted buddy of old … Or is it Arianna who is manifesting Hannah this way as she loses her grip on who she once was and resists what she is suddenly destined to become?

Objectively it becomes apparent Arianna works in a restaurant and has recently been promoted to duty manager while Brenton has lost whatever his job was and is on the dole. Their (her?) home – as designed by Sasha Tilly – is a cut above student flat level. The entire back wall is covered in graphic mementos of Arianna’s life to date, such as may adorn a fridge or kitchen notice board but neater. And empty frames await the future.

What we are witnessing, then, is mostly, or possibly entirely, Arianna’s subjective reality. Some of what she is saying may still be thoughts; some of what happens is filtered memory and some of may be entirely imagined. But the potential for a whole new life is, I think, certain (unlike the phantom variety Albee plays with in at least two of his works).

It is possible Brenton’s behaviour towards the end is objectively real. In fact the final image suggests it could have been his mind we’ve been privy to all along, festering with the eternal questions: Is s/he the one? Is this the life I want? What future do we have …? But there is no sign of his provider /protector genes kicking in, or even knocking at the door of his consciousness. Mind you, her nesting /nurturing instincts have not made themselves apparent either.

Given the inciting circumstance, more could be explored in the future realm, by way of manifesting the fears and fantasies … That none of the characters seem to have a vocation, ambition or skill set that might affect or be affected by this major turning point in their lives may be seen as a deficiency – unless that is a point the playwright is making about young adults today.

As it stands, Cleanskin captures a timeless and universal moment of truth for a whole new generation, and the way reality is resisted in this dramatisation and production makes for absorbing theatre.

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