Mirror, written by Sidney Sussex student Luke Al-Rehani, is set in an empty, windowless room. For the purpose of representing this environment, the Corpus Playroom couldn’t be better. Along with Al-Rehani’s direction and staging – blocking was simple but effective, and the utterly stark set fitted in with the script – this unfortunately remained the best thing about the production.

When the lights went down, three characters lying foetal, prone and supine on the floor stood up. The personified figures of Faith (Rose Beale), Rape (Ami Jones) and Pain (Angela Liu) are trapped together, without recollection of their arrival.

The acting was disappointing. Beale, ever looking skywards, exuded an appropriate amount of serenity, and Jones sometimes suitably expressed the cold seductiveness that the script has deemed fitting for Rape’s characterisation. But Pain remained irritatingly petulant throughout, and, in general, all three performances were far too stilted.

For the entire hour, the three characters discuss the nature of their duties, fears and existences. The figures were supposed to feel frustrated that their questioning of each other was not leading to their release, but that does not excuse the fact that at no point does this dialogue feel consequential or insightful. “Your actual conversation has been superfluous,” Faith helpfully points out at the play’s end. “I don’t know why,” Rape states, entirely unsatisfactorily, when asked why she isn’t male. “I don’t even have the words!” exclaimed Pain angrily at one point. Despite initial pretence, this is not an eloquent play. And, whilst Faith and Pain are legitimate abstract and independent ideas, rape is not. It feels as if the violent act is trivialised as it is turned into an allegory that is female, seductive and irresistible.

The conclusion was baffling. It was revealed in the closing minutes that the scenario was a test from God to decide whether Rape or Pain was doing a better job on earth, with Faith as “supervisor”. Pain was left wracked by guilt and lifeless in a corner, and Rape triumphed.  She then returned to the world to take over Pain’s duties, because He had bizarrely decided that Rape and Pain are so similar to each another that only one of them is required. God is streamlining his workforce in these difficult times, too.

It is good to find student writing being performed in Cambridge, but whether it is worth going to see it is a different matter. In Mirror’s case, it is not.