David Spencer's play starts on territory familiar to Royle Family fans and progresses to the ninth circle of relationship hell. As the play develops, the circle constricts, drawing the audience into a vortex of romantic delusion and the psychological cancer of self-loathing.
The action begins with a documentary voice-over, describing how a cow becomes aware of imminent slaughter by smelling the fear and adrenaline of those preceding it. Throughout this portrayal of a love-triangle in a TV-dominated lounge, that image of a witless animal struggling help-lessly towards its own destruction adds to the sense of catastrophic claustrophobia.
Tina has the sex appeal of a tub of lard, but when Darren agrees to set up home with her, a romantic paradise seems to beckon. Simon Scullion's set evokes a basic five-roomed flat where the tokens of Tina and Darren's love reach their apogee in a fake tiger-skin bed-head inset with a cassette recorder to play everything from Frank Sinatra to Dusty Springfield.
Tina has a handicapped son, Ollie, and has been sterilised after delivering her second child still-born. Her problems start anew when Carol, Ollie's 17-year-old babysitter, catches Darren's porn-fuelled attention, and moves into the flat.
Although the echoes of Spencer's latest work are strongly televisual, both the structure and the lit-fuse tension make it a compellingly theatrical piece. The key factor in transforming Glass Hearts from a stereotypical story about a middle-aged man dumping his lover for a younger, perter model is inescapably Karen E Jones's powerful portrayal of Tina's fermenting discontent as she demotes herself to the doormat of all doormats to keep his love.
Director George Ormond has drawn out beautifully under-stated performances from Adrian Lochead as Darren and Lorraine Hodgson as Carol to complete this strikingly unequilateral love triangle. There is no backhand to this compliment: it makes you want to run screaming from the theatre.
Glass Hearts
