Chaser

It's been a couple of years since the taut and sexually explicit Extra Virgin was an attention-getting Fringe Festival hit. This year the same playwright, Howard Walters, has another intense and edgy one-act in the Festival that also has two gay men (literally and figuratively) going at it. This one is sharper and even more provocative, an engrossing drama in which confident, quick-thinking Val (Wil Petre) has a secret agenda while aggressively putting the moves on gun-shy Dominick (Jake Alexander) on their first date. Both actors are excellent and well-matched, bringing a palpable sense of emotional (and sexual) danger to even their most benign interplay, and Shaun Peknic's no-nonsense direction ably serves the play's intimate cold-eyed naturalism.

Also blogged by: [David]