Vital, intimate and sexy: MTCs Berlin is a smart romantic thriller – Sydney Morning Herald

Mutual seduction is the most intimate of performances. Wahr and Cummings portray it with humour, emotional intelligence, and downright sexy stage chemistry, as the conversation roves from the poetry of Rilke to traumatic personal revelation, from the history that haunts the German capital to its hedonism and bohemian allure.

And yet, their meeting was not by chance. Tom has an ulterior motive and, the next morning, the play takes a tormented and polemical turn as the hungover couple reckon with the shadows of the past.

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To reveal more in a review would be impolite, though you can easily anticipate the twist from early on. The thriller is less interesting and less plausible than the setup, and some of the emotional logic of the play gets sacrificed to the imperatives of genre.

It still carries you along, despite a notable shift from meticulously crafted characters with a life of their own to figures who feel like mouthpieces for the playwrights ideas.

And it does remain a moody and sumptuously realised production, with Iain Sinclairs sensitive, tightly focused direction, and a dream design team Christina Smith, Niklas Pajanti, Kelly Ryall supporting the vitality and intimacy of the performances.

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Vital, intimate and sexy: MTCs Berlin is a smart romantic thriller - Sydney Morning Herald