The Argus: fringe_2011_logo_red_thumbIt's hard to find the right words to describe the effect of Amy Nostbakken’s performance as a young woman adrift in her own life.

The phrases that come to mind – being hit by a train, left shell-shocked – are too clichéd for a play that is anything but.

As Natalie, a Canadian painter painfully squandering the opportunity of a solo exhibition at Tate Modern, Nostbakken sheds skin in demonstrating how youth and art can be the bleakest of romances. Corseted in a stiff pink dress as if it’s the only thing holding her together, the audience follows Natalie’s spiral into despair as she narrates a cappella “the summer she died”.

Characters break free, alarmingly, from Lecoq-trained Nostbakken’s body – the meddling aunt, the creaky mentor despairing at Natalie’s inertia, the “friend” whose tawdry behaviour leaves her riding the night bus home in a urine-stained silver dress.

The sense of growing agitation, of a girl being overwhelmed physically and mentally, is deadly. The climax, poignant in its inevitability, is sadder still in its typical domestic mundanity. A powerful, brave and frightening piece of theatre from a company whose work commands respect.

* Until May 11, 8.30pm, £9.50/£7.50. Call 01273 709709.