Theatre / The Cut. Mill Theatre, Fyshwick. Until September 21. Reviewed by ALANNA MACLEAN.

Mark Ravenhill’s The Cut is a surreal and quietly savage piece that deals in guilt and responsibility, with a glance at the tides of history.

At the beginning Paul (Ali Clinch) is responsible for administering the mysterious “cut”,  a practice that seems to render the receiver docile. John (Diana Caban Velez) desperately wants the procedure; Paul is reluctant.

In the middle of the play Paul’s home life is revealed. Wife Susan (Hanna Tonks) seems ignorant of her husband’s involvement with the procedure. At the end the cut seems to have been outlawed and Paul is facing his son Stephen (Maxine Beaumont) from a jail cell as a result.

The exact nature of the cut is never revealed but the presence of robotically quiet servants Meena (Caban Velez) and Geeta (Beaumont) suggests some deeply sinister effects.

The play gains much of its power from chillingly conversational attitudes to what amounts to torture.

Sammy Moynihan’s production and all-female cast tend toward the low key and are perhaps a little lacking in tension as a result, but then it’s that very conversational element that can deepen audience discomfort.

Occasionally unsettling sound design from Marlene Radice and careful lighting design from Jen Wright support a disturbing piece of theatre.

And the small, unusually shaped Mill Theatre, with its two banks of seating in an L shape framing a compact playing space continues to surprise with the uses to which it can be put.

News all day, every day at CityNewsQBN.com.au.