Richard (George Johnston) and Corinne (Hellie Cranney) have moved to the country, leaving the town and Richard's troubles behind. Only, his story of reform and a clean new life as a country doctor and faithful husband is not the only version of events. When he brings an unconscious young woman (Deli Segal) into the family home one night, a different set of motivations for the couple's pastoral relocation emerges.

Hellie Cranney plays the betrayed wife with wary control, refusing to be pathetic or to give in to rage. She is both willfully unperceptive, refusing to reassess the state of her marriage, and verbally alert, tripping up her husband on every linguistic evasion. George Johnston's doctor has the aggressive tone of an anxious liar, cagey and guiltily irritable. His dialogue with his wife is highly patterned, full of interruptions, repetitions and overlapping lines. Though the rhythms felt a little unnatural at first, they soon settled. Cranney and Johnston convincingly portray a precarious relationship propped up by Corinne's self-deceiving hope.

As the disruptive influence in the couple's unsteadily balanced marriage, Deli Segal is brilliant as Rebecca: sinisterly sensuous, intellectually intimidating and manipulative. Her encounter with Corinne is a highlight. While Corinne weaves a story to maintain the appearance of her husband's fidelity, apologizing for the behaviour of the 'man you met this afternoon', Rebecca pityingly asks, 'Do you really not know?'

The play is constructed from a series of duologues: Corinne/Richard; Corinne/Rebecca; Rebecca/Richard, and finally the married couple again at the end. The tactic puts pressure on each encounter, emphasizing the shifting dynamics between characters and revealing the fronts we put on for different company. There are disquieting echoes of dialogue shifted between the different pairings. When Rebecca hurts Richard's hand and asks, 'Is the cut deep? Does it hurt?' it is exactly the question Richard put to his wife in the opening scene. Rebecca's request of Richard, 'don't look at me!', is similarly familiar as the command Richard gave Corinne earlier. And Corinne's final account of her evening walk is chillingly reminiscent of Rebecca's opening story.

Particularly impressive was the actors' ability to handle silence. Johnston's wordless presence in the final scene as he listened to his wife's story was nuanced and expressive, and Cranney's silent act of opening her birthday cards one by one was gripping. As the actors were capable of giving so much tension to silence, the music that filtered in at the ends of scenes felt unnecessary, dispelling the carefully constructed mood. Though perhaps the disconcerting entry of soothing, harmonious string playing was fitting in a play which contrasts the unharmonious lives of its characters with their peaceful pastoral idyll.

The Country is a tense unravelling of a plot and a marriage, meticulously scripted and patterned. The dialogue focusses attention on the unnerving resonances of everyday words, and the actors allowed the script to shine.