The Solid Life of Sugar Water review

First staged at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2015 before a successful transfer to the National Theatre, The Solid Life of Sugar Water is an intimate, heart-rending two-hander from playwright and screenwriter Jack Thorne. The story focuses in unflinching detail on likeably awkward young couple Alice and Phil, jumbling together their differing recollections of their sex life and discussing the seismic impact that the trauma of an unsuccessful pregnancy had on their relationship.

The gripping dialogue has a fleshy, messy, self-disclosing quality that celebrates the depth of intimacy that can be achieved through sex or shared suffering, while acknowledging that there are some experiences so isolating that no words could adequately express them. Thorne deploys his observations with an utter frankness that cuts straight to the core of the difficult and rarely acknowledged subject matter.

Director Indiana Lown-Collins deftly handles the play’s emotionally gruelling content. Her in-the-round staging invites the audience to share in an already uncomfortably close familiarity with the performers and with each other. Sometimes, when the grief is at its most raw, the effect is almost unbearably intrusive. At other moments, it’s used to great humorous effect. Much of the show is cringingly funny, built on Alice and Phil’s frank, filthy, and often joyful descriptions of their sex acts. But Lown-Collins’ taut pacing ensures there’s always a tension simmering below the surface. When it finally breaks – in a particularly poignant and distressing sequence – we’re given time to sit with the tragedy that the pair has experienced.

Adam Fenton plays Phil – neurotic, gawky, prone to enthusiastic outbursts – with great energy. Caught up in relaying the minute details of the relationship, Fenton bounces about the space, before suddenly trailing off in palpable, throat-catching pain. And Katie Erich is excellent as Alice, perfectly capturing the character’s complex, often contradictory emotions. There’s a plausible, tender chemistry between the two performers. Alice adores Phil despite being bemused by his immaturity – and hates him for his inability to share her agony fully, even as she’s tormented by her helpless inability to repair their relationship.

The set, from designer Ica Niemz, is minimal. An unmade, blood-stained marital bed takes up most of the stage, suspended over a deep pit – a literal well of despair that has opened within Alice and Phil’s relationship. Animated projections, designed by Sarah Readman, add visual texture, while fully integrating captions into the performance: surtitles take shape among the fragile waveforms of a heart monitor read-out. As events unfold, electronic lines overlap, throb, peak and eventually – crushingly – go still, leaving us in wordless silence.