Fatherland *** TNT

There’s tension in the air right from the start of Australian playwright Tom
 Holloway’s short two-hander in which a teenage daughter is visiting her 
father in his partially decorated home.
 Both their body posture and language suggests that there’s more at stake 
here than just a casual access visit.

Despite the initial teasing exchanges,
 he’s on edge, his nervousness barely kept in check. She’s anxious, sullen 
and progressively unable to conceal the conflict of emotions.
 There’s obviously an unspoken history between them which threatens to 
resurface at any moment, though they both know it shouldn’t. Neither dares 
to answer the phone when it rings, repeatedly, a startling intrusion from
 the world outside.


Caroline Steinbeis’s confident production doesn’t stint on visual surprises 
(a pizza delivery crashes through the rear wall) and the performances 
(Jonathan McGuinness tightly coiled and controlling in a doomed attempt to 
establish a less intense relationship, Angela Terence troubled and wary)
 maintain the enigmatic nature of the writing.


But Holloway takes things both too far and not far enough. So whilst the 
final images seem clumsily gratuitous, without help from the programme it 
would be virtually impossible to figure out that the structuring of the 
preceding (admittedly atmospherically charged) scenes follows the five 
stages of the grieving process.


Gate Theatre, Pembridge Road, W11 3HQ (020 7229 0706) Tube: Notting Hill Gate gatetheatre.co.uk Until March 12 £20