Chilling and enthralling as we examine our understanding of truth and perception

Phillip Ridley’s Leaves of Glass is written to challenge our understanding of the world, where the perception of seeing so much of each other’s lives can lead to the perception that we know so much. Leaves of Glass sets out to usurp expectations and question what we think we know.

We’re introduced to Steven, performed by Ned Costello, as a successful, stoic, albeit tense man in his 30s. Steven can do no wrong in the eyes of his mother, Liz (Kacey Ainsworth). In contrast, Debbie has little patience for Steven’s brother Barry. Barry, (Joseph Potter) introduced as a recently recovered alcoholic with his head in the clouds, hardly able to hold down a job working for Steven’s cleaning company, more focussed on his unlikely ambitions to become an artist. The dynamic is apparently clear. Steven looks after Barry, even if he doesn’t always agree with him. Rounding out the quartet is Debbie, played by Katie Eldred, Steven’s wife. Debbie and Steven’s relationship is introduced as a fairly complex dynamic – we’re made to feel from the start that their relationship has been on the rocks, but surviving. Both parties test each other in early scenes but we’re made to feel like the fights are a fair match. 

The stage is set in the round, with 4 benches arranged in a square being the only mainstay of an otherwise minimal list of props and stage features. Our characters are exposed and vulnerable to prying eyes. We, the audience, feel like we can see everything. But as the play goes on this very understanding is subverted. 

The play runs for a single act, for around 100 minutes – an unusual choice, but one that feels like a stroke of genius upon reflection. At some point during the middle of the play, you find yourself feeling quite confused. The characters begin talking about things that you don’t understand. Scenes that otherwise feel quite out of place from what we’ve seen moments prior leave you scratching your head and wondering ‘Wait, how did we get here?’ This is all by design, and while initially jarring, is in fact brilliantly executed. All of a sudden, Steven’s life is unravelling amongst a myriad of accusations of bad behaviour, and Barry is on the moral high ground, appearing stable, on the brink of a breakthrough with his art career. Costello and Potter combine perfectly as our plot unfolds to show the complex dynamic of two brothers intermittently letting their masks slip to show the scars of the traumas they’ve been through together, or put each other through. The chemistry between the two actors is truly on-point, even demonstrated through some brief but wonderfully choreographed physical scraps. 

The play being a single act wonderfully increases that shift towards intentional confusion. It prevents the play from being split into a ‘before and after’ narrative, and also prevents the audience from having a break to collect their thoughts and share their understanding of what’s going on with their peers during an interval.

The final two scenes are the play’s finest, and where I commend the creative team, and Director Max Harrison. The lights go off and the scene is lit by just a few candles, as one character recounts through a deeply harrowing story from their past that deals the hypothetical killing blow to the audience’s perception of another. The atmosphere and dialogue here is unsettling, but sharp and captivating. Costello and Potter make wonderful use of the space to show their struggles for the control of the narrative. Despite the lights coming on, the final scene is equally as dark as we get our inevitably bitter ending. The sort that stays with you and you think about all the way home.