The Amber Trap review or 'Feeling cornered?'

The Amber Trap, Tabitha Mortiboy

Theatre 503, 29th April 2019

Written for The Guardian

The shelves are crammed with wine bottles, colourful tins, cereal boxes and washing powders. It’s a bit of a mess but there’s something about this ramshackle shop, designed withcareful carelessness by Jasmine Swan, that feels like home. Katie and Hope, who both work here, kissed for the first time by the counter. It’s where they fell in love. But the safety of the shop is about to be compromised and the outside world, and all the danger and confusion it entails, is about to be let in.

Little happens in the shop – but it’s a lovely kind of inactivity. Katie (Olivia Rose Smith) and Hope (Fanta Barrie, burning with energy) occasionally wipe a surface but they also juggle tangerines, steal kisses and gently tease shop owner Jo (Jenny Bolt). Nineties love songs play on the radio, although the play’s precise setting remains unclear. Lucy Adams’s lighting soothes everything it touches. Director Hannah Hauer-King keeps things cosily low key and the early scenes glow with an easy sense of affection and belonging.

Playwright Tabitha Mortiboy has an eye for quirky detail and a light comic touch: Katie and Hope play curling with a packet of crisps and, on Halloween, Katie dons a giant (bloody) banana outfit. When Michael (Misha Butler), a trainee doctor, arrives to work at the shop there’s a naivety to him that initially appeals. He bombards Katie with medical facts and cheesy gags: “I can name all the bones in your body. Fibula. Just fibbin ya!”

As Michael falls for Katie, the play warps and darkens in odd fits and starts. Michael turns cruel and brittle. His actions stun but rarely convince. Katie’s character becomes very complicated very quickly. Her struggles to own her lesbian identity arrive too late – a hint at a fraught internal struggle that would take a whole new play to untangle. But the entitlement that young Michael feels certainly touches a nerve. In one memorable scene, he spots shop owner Jo’s wounded wrist, grabs it and twists – hard. Jo has left herself exposed and vulnerable, and Michael has made her pay.