Jermyn Street Theatre – until 24 January 2026
Reviewed by Claire Roderick
4 ****
The claustrophobic atmosphere that builds in Lyle Kessler’s strange and tense play is palpable as the contained lives of two brothers are upended by a stranger.
Since the death of their mother, Treat (Chris Walley) has taken care of his brother Phillip (Fred Woodley Evans) in their dilapidated old row house in North Philadelphia – Sarah Beaton’s atmospheric set beautifully conveying a sense of building and life in disrepair. Treat makes enough money for them to survive by going out every day and robbing people, while Phillip never leaves the house. Phillip’s dangerous allergic reaction years ago is the reason for Phillip’s isolation, fearful of breathing the air outside. This isolation feels like captivity to the audience as Treat’s behaviour towards his brother is ambiguous: is he caring for his brother out of love, guilt, duty, the need to be needed himself, or to feel power over someone? Treated like a child by his brother, Phillip is more capable and wilier than he acts. Treat is comfortable thinking that Phillip spends his time alone looking out the window or hiding in the closet, but Phillip has a hidden stash of books and devours reruns of old movies on TV as a window to life and society outside – albeit a vision of life from decades before. Again, whether he is hiding his true self to appease his brother or girding himself quietly for a rebellion is never made clear.
Whatever their motivations, life plods along for the brothers until Treat walks in with a drunken stranger, planning to rob him. When he opens his briefcase and finds stock certificates worth a small fortune, the plan changes to kidnap. Unfortunately for Treat, Frank (Forbes Masson) is not an ideal victim, quickly winning over Phillip and eventually taking the more suspicious Treat under his wing and giving him shady assignments as his bodyguard. Frank is also an orphan, and his tales of life in a Chicago orphanage and seemingly tall tales of his adult life are met with incredulity by Treat and wild-eyed wonder by Phillip. Again, who Frank is, and what his motives for staying with the brothers are never explicit as his erratic behaviour suggests that he could be simply hiding out, cruelly manipulating or feeling genuine empathy in swift rotation. All three men are emotionally scarred by the lack of parental love, and their reactions are childlike – violent, but childlike – as the battle for Phillip’s affections rumbles on.
The cast are simply magnificent. Chris Walley is a powder keg of pent-up anger and fear as Treat, Fred Woodley Evans nails the innocence of Phillip, and Forbes Masson is weirdly stomach churning as Frank – like a Teddy Bear with a reptilian soul. All three make the audience care about these unpalatable characters as the outside world catches up with them. Al Miller leans into the dark humour and sense of abandonment of the characters and Kessler’s writing, and the result is soberingly intriguing.