The ready-made setting in the Sustainability Trust showroom – a room in a standard family home with a blind, armchair and colourful children’s toys scattered on the floor, displayed in cross-section to reveal its wrap-around insulation – is ideal for this Red Scare Theatre Company production of GIRLS & BOYS. It’s a ‘slice of life’ metaphor for the way theatre allows us to gather and share insights into the human condition and its driving forces while insulated from actual harm.

About 90 minutes into this 100-minute play, solo performer Sabrina Martin, in the role of an unnamed woman, brings us to “the hard bit” by reminding us, “It’s not happening now. It did not happen to you.” I won’t disclose more except to observe the event she goes on to reveal was first dramatised in ancient Greek tragedy. But given the statistical evidence of its occurrence in the modern world, British playwright Dennis Kelly reverses the genders.

Let me hasten to add that it is comedy-of-insight into the foibles, fallibilities, fortitude and resilience of this ‘everywoman’, that carries us through to ‘the hard bit’. With a ruthless honesty, for which she makes no apology, Martin’s woman regales us with her escape from a life and family she feels no connection to, into “drinky, druggy, slaggy” adventures in Europe. Her juxtaposing is her judgmental internal monologue with the more objective realities if the situations she finds herself in generates much of the retrospectively self-aware humour.

Being stuck in a frustrating queue at an airport provokes thoughts we can all relate to, including fantasies of violent retribution which of course we’d never act on in reality – would we? It’s here she first encounters the misjudged man (also un-named) with whom she will enter a more mature phase of her life. He – a self-made dealer in antique furniture, also alienated from his family – is instrumental in helping her past her self-doubt. A job interview scene, contested by scores of applicants, is highly relatable and it is that ruthless honesty we’ve come to respect that gets her through.

Interleaved with the unfolding story are ‘present moment’ scenes that show what a terrible mother she thinks she is, as she copes – again in a highly relatable way – with little Leanne and even younger Danny. They are imagined in the retelling but Martin’s consummate mime skills, subtly employed, make them real in our imaginations. In these situations, the need to act instantly to avoid disaster makes the anguish inherent in unconditional love palpable. We ride the rollercoaster with them.

When she tells the man she’s pregnant, then misinterprets his reaction and makes instant decisions about what to do before the truth of his behaviour is revealed, the story elements begin to come together. This entertaining gem is just one of the memorable moments we are destined to revisit in retrospect when we try to make sense of what’s happened years later.

Meanwhile we are treated to Sabrina Martin and director James Kiesel’s beautifully modulated segues from subjective experience to objective assessment. With deceptive ease they compel our engagement and growing empathy, unobtrusively abetted by Production Designer Jacob Banks, Lighting Designer Rowan McShane, and light and sound operator Stevie Hancox-Monk.

Glimpses into her work-life balance and the progress of the couple’s respective careers leave plenty of gaps for us to fill with our imaginations. Her focus is on key moments that may or may not be germane to where we are headed. When their work-related fortunes diverge, it’s intriguing to note how she retains the inner strength he helped her find while he loses it.

And so to “the hard bit”, revealed with clinical honesty for our objective appraisal in concert with our collective subjective shock. We are left with the questions she is doomed to ponder forever: Should she have seen it coming even though it was inconceivable? Is violence fundamental to what we call humanity? Can we ever, as a species, move on from that?

We may also ask if the playwright is offering clues by calling a minor character Jason and the pet dog after a transformer: Optimus Prime. Certainly the title, Girls & Boys, resonates on many levels.

This is a potent production of an important play you won’t regret engaging with.

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