Rebecca Gilman is an American playwright who specialises in depicting the grubbiness of relationships - their conflicts, dark ambiguities and episodes of self-loathing.
This is the UK premiere of a play first presented in Chicago in 2001, and it's surprising that it has taken so long to come here.
The title suggests a rising tide of both melancholy and raunchiness. It's also a punning reference to blue serge, a material that's tough, like many of the characters Gilman portrays, and the pun is inspired by one character's mishearing of the name of a haunting jazz number by Duke Ellington.
The air of despondency is mixed with a certain flirtatious comedy. It's a combination that pervades the lives of flatmates Sandy and Heather, who work in a massage parlour somewhere in smalltown America. When cops Curt and Doug botch a raid on their premises, this pathetic endeavour results - a touch improbably - in the priapic Doug becoming romantically embroiled with sassy, roistering Heather and the more sensitive Curt linking up with pensive Sandy. In both cases this is a lapse of professional standards, and in Curt's it is also a serious miscue on the domestic front, as he has a soberly employed and discreetly privileged fiancée.
Gilman deftly conveys how Curt's feelings of isolation inform his bond with the equally solitary Sandy. She also shows the pernicious ways in which social class and family expectation (or lack of it) can shape individuals' destiny: material poverty guarantees a poverty of opportunity.
Sparsely staged, Ché Walker's intimate production is lit up by intelligent performances. There's satisfying work from Kelly Burke, Alexander Guiney and Samantha Coughlan. But it's Clare Latham as the solemn, hollowed-out Sandy and the tensely expressive James Hillier as Curt who impress the most.
Until August 27 (020 7244 7439).
Blue Surge
Finborough Theatre
Finborough Road, SW10 9ED
