Fall

Intense, ferocious and existing right on the edge, Zinnie Harris' new play for the Traverse is given a particularly brutal production under the directorial hand of the theatre's new artistic director, Dominic Hill.

There's nowhere to hide here, as Harris explores the convulsions shaking a country which is trying to drag itself out of post-civil war decline and decide what to do with those who perpetrated the horrors it has had to live through.

At the heart of the play's success, and it is successful, are a series of well-sustained, strong and believable performances.

Geraldine Alexander plays Kate, a widow who has discovered that her husband was not the quiet tailor she thought, but a part of the previous regime. Her confrontation with Evener (Cliff Burnett), his one-time commander and now a prisoner awaiting capital punishment, is a long, intense slow burn of pent-up emotion.

While the population is baying for blood, Howard (Paul Hickey), advisor to the prime minister, knows that the government has to be seen to be conforming to notions of humanitarian decency. Its not, as puppet prime minister Pierre (Darrell D'Silva) believes, a moral issue. The concern is foreign aid, not that by killing the leaders of the previous regime they will become no better than them.

Meg Fraser as Pierre' wife, Kiki, who wants to stand by her husband, and Kevin McMonagle as Kate's neighbour and friend, Liddel, who is there to help her in any way he can, provide compelling supporting roles, as Howard decides to delegate the decision to sign the death warrants to Kate – after showing her the videos of the atrocities.

Samantha Young as a locally-born but London-based human rights worker and Brian Ferguson as a prison guard have somewhat more obviously symbolic interjections to make, but do so while sustaining the naturalism of the narrative.

Tom Piper's big design, with sliding doors across the stage hiding depressingly drab partitions, helps accentuate how close to the end this country is. As the play builds to its brutal end with a horrifying sense of inevitability, it might not be easy to watch, and the final scene is not quite honed enough, but it packs one powerfully edifying punch.