Graceland, Royal Court Theatre review ★★★★★

Some pressing topics and compelling writing fuel playwright and theatre critic Ava Wong Davies’ new one-woman show Graceland. A contemporary relationship drama that sucks us in from the get-go, it explores the complexities of coercive control without force-feeding us a black-and-white narrative. It allows us to play detective, dropping clues into subtle interactions and allowing our minds to fill in the blanks of the script’s frequent ellipses. But in keeping suggestions of abuse vague, the play’s climax is confusing and it’s unclear what we’re meant to feel by the end.

Nina is the British-raised daughter of Chinese parents. Having left school unsure of her ambitions, she takes a receptionist job rather than working at the family’s Cantonese restaurant. A meet-cute at a mutual friend’s barbecue propels her into the arms of Gabriel, a wealthy, white poet bankrolled by his family, and from this point on, most of the narrative is told in the second person, with Nina talking to Gabriel. He’s quick to move Nina out of her grotty rental and into his flat off Victoria Park, but soon the cracks start to show, and Nina is left confused by Gabriel’s hot-and-cold, and often dismissive, attitude towards her.

Sabrina Wu as Nina in Graceland. Photo: Ali Wright

The word ‘abuse’ is never explicitly said, nor should it need to be, but the problem is, we’re also told too little about Gabriel’s actions for our concern to match Nina’s rising fears over his volatility. He slaps away her hand, accidentally shuts her fingers in the door and withholds intimacy, but the roughest hit in the show comes from her, leaving a mark on his cheek. This is not to gaslight Nina or her author, nor to make light of violence against women, but when a friend later suggests Nina should raise the alarm over Gabriel’s abuse, another side to the story is left unexplored.

Sabrina Wu gives an enthralling performance as Nina, holding our attention throughout despite being up against tricksy traverse staging, with the audience either side of her. Graceland hasn’t had a smooth ride onto the stage, either: director Anna Himali Howard had to step away from the production three weeks into rehearsals, with Izzy Rabey filling in. It's a slick production, considering.

Sabrina Wu as Nina in Graceland. Photo: Ali Wright

Mydd Pharo’s set, running on an impressive budget for the upstairs space at the Royal Court, dwarfs the narrative at times. Its single bed and shabby, fading wallpaper fit the past Nina is looking to leave behind, but the mounds of damp earth surrounding the stage, which Nina sink into or smears herself with, appear out of proportion to the interactions she’s describing. It’s a cliched way of symbolising a woman's fears of being buried in a relationship, made all the more so by the decision for her to stand under a shower of rain when she finds her release.

Wong Davies is a talented writer, applying the same wit, lyrical flow and all-round easiness with the pen to her playwriting as is enviable in her theatre criticism. But Graceland is too ambiguous a story to pack a proper punch.