Bash, revived for one night at the Corpus Playroom after its run last Easter, is a duologue and two monologues written by Neil LaBute, and staged in Cambridge by Charlie Risius and Andrew Room. The subject matter is often challenging: the short plays deal with homophobic violence, exploitative relationships and the barely-concealed impulses for violence and self-preservation that lurk within us all. The cast were up to the job, however, and made what could have been a dour and depressing few hours into a selection of thought-provoking snapshots of the human mind.

Max Upton as a man in a hotel room relating the circumstances of his infant daughter’s death to a stranger, and Olivia Emden as a woman recounting a relationship she had with a high school teacher, were the strongest of the cast. Their performances were absorbing; from the flawless American accents to the carefully-judged pauses and meticulous attention to mannerisms, I found myself forgetting that I was watching them acting at all. The only slight point of annoyance was that Upton was positioned too far forward on the stage, and so it was difficult for the entire audience to appreciate the full force of his monologue. Having seen both Upton and Emden going from strength to strength (her in Three Sisters and An Italian Straw Hat and him in Comedy of Errors and Merchant of Venice) it is clear that these two are honing their craft and biding their time until they break out of the Cambridge bubble and onto the professional scene.

The duologue, with Tom Russell and Jess Peet as a young couple in the run-up to their engagement, was generally well done. Peet in particular seemed to really connect with her character, and dealt with the script’s comedic edge excellently. Russell didn’t embody the swaggering young student to the same extent and some of his lines consequently fell a bit flat, meaning this middle piece, while still packing quite an emotional punch, didn’t have the same devastating impact on the audience. So much of each of the three plays depends on the use of silence and pauses, and I felt this could have been considered a little more carefully.

Bash is a great example of the kind of unusual or forgotten scripts that can often be so successful on the Cambridge drama scene. It’s such a shame that it’s only on for one night; let’s hope it returns soon.