Written by Ciara Elizabeth Smyth

Directed by Oisín Kearney

The very notion of taking an absurdist humour and approach to sexual consent, work-place-harassment and believing those who come forward is not only an ill-advised pr nightmare; but frankly dangerous in the wrong hands.

Good thing Lie Low is written with such disarmingly acute humour, and tense confrontation that it all slides into the place rather miraculously.

From the off, there’s a sharp intake of breath which isn’t let go for the initial minutes. What we see is a woman, alone, framed as if something beyond imaginable horrors may be about to commence. Which is then cut across with an upbeat dance routine with lurid and fantastical scenes as a large man, complete with a Duck mask, emerges from the wardrobe behind her. The pair then cut some shapes with Paula O’Reilly’s movement direction in a distressingly jolly job, complete with blazing music.

It seems that twenty nights without sleep will do that to a person.

Fay spends her evening with some cereal and lukewarm Rum and Cokes. It’s a spacious, ‘Scandinavian’ flat devoid of eccentricities and needless material goods. But there is a wardrobe. Her deceased mother’s one: one big enough for a relatively large man to fit inside. The root of these sleepless nights unfurls itself as a case of uncertain memory and an experience which may, or may not, have ended with a sexual assault by a masked man who followed her home.

Consulting a shapeless doctor (voiced by Rory Nolan), Fay comes to the healthy(?) conclusion of attempting exposure therapy. And if you’ve been paying attention, you may have the same alarmed expression most of the audience has.

Charlotte McCurry carries Faye with such a swaying and hovering state of emotions, that it’s exhilarating to watch, but it’s equally as wary, ensuring that the audience traverses a sense of guilt, of confusion as they go from believing to doubting, to begin questioning the motivations and the truths. It’s fascinating, it’s demanding, and McCurry plays it all marvellously with a killer sense of humour as Denis Clohessy’s sound design continues to discombobulate further.

Drawn into helping her, brother Naoise (Michael Patrick, with Finnegan alternating in some Thomas scenes) is, understandably, reluctant to play the role of his sister’s assailant. But gradually Smyth’s story reveals even more revelations, Patrick doing an intimidating job as the power dynamics of the two fluctuate, Naoise’s own issues with sexual misconduct at work putting Fay on the back foot.

Oisín Kearney’s direction has tremendous glee in manipulating the audience’s expectations, whipping the rug out from them just as the narrative finds some form of linear understanding. Proof is smoke in Elizabeth Smyth’s Lie Low. The blame game continues right up until that 70th minute, and even then, the audience still leaves not entirely convinced. And Smyth orchestrates it all beautifully: ambiguous and dirty.