BILLED as “Gothic,” Jackie Smith’s Patrick White award winning play brings to centre stage a grim but, to anyone brought up in the country, very real story from behind the flyscreens of rural Australia.

Set somewhere in the Riverina (Leeton is mentioned specifically) the play centres on a mother, Janet, (Shirley Cattunar) who, surrounded by the detritus of her old age, lives on a dysfunctional property with her divorced daughter Dot (Maude Davey). The atmosphere of a run-down farmhouse cut off by flood waters is beautifully evoked in Kathryn Sprout’s evocative set.

Much in the manner of an Ibsen play—for this is naturalistic theatre—her younger daughter, Catherine, (Caroline Lee) appears at the farm after an absence of over 20 years,  to bring out the truth about the disappearance of the offstage abusive husband and father, Brian.

Performed without interval, the drama is structured in four sections, with the home-truths coming out in the penultimate scene. To my mind it could easily have finished at that point.

The three performers are perfectly matched, with Cattunar creating a totally believable character as the mother descending into dementia, fleeing a set of memories that anyone would want to escape.

Davey and Lee avoid the stereotype of feuding sisters, allowing plenty of give and take as London sophisticate and stay-at-home big sister explore their joint past.

Strangio’s production is fast and intense, with occasional moments of sardonic humour that never interrupts the sustained sense of seriousness. Gripping is the word.