Cheap and Tearful
Phil Gibby, Stage
  
Exploring the breakdown of a marriage, this two-hander is a thoughtful work.
 
Lucy (Framboise Gommendy) is in an institution with scratch marks on her face. Husband Gary (played by the director Andrew Stanson) visits her, unable to comprehend the background to her shattered mental condition. He has been playing away with no-morals Moira, however, and when it all becomes too much for Lucy, she drops the knife with which she had proposed to take revenge and internalises her anger instead.
  
The making of an omelette is used here as a metaphor for the state of their relationship. It is an appropriate one for, rhetorically, writer John Cargill Thompson is a man who has never been afraid to put all his eggs in one basket.
  
This play, by contrast, is without such bombast. It is a carefully drawn anatomy of two people who realise that they do not understand each other as they thought they did, a play for and one which comes complete with a message for all of us.
  
All in all, it offers plenty of food for thought and thoroughly deserves the wider exposure it should get in London this autumn.