From the threateningly, sombre opening music (composed by CHRON), new drama Death Pact takes the audience to some dark places. I am not talking crepuscular; I am talking shadowless and bleak.
It is New Year's Eve, and a slightly drunk Victor Lloyd visits Norman Birch at his flat. Things are not as they seem, there is no welcome or nicety about their greetings and Norman is ill and mourning his just-dead budgie. These are the first clues that the room is filling up with carbon monoxide.
In a grotesque construal of making a virtue out of a crisis, the pair make a spur-of-the-moment suicide pact, and the remaining action plays out as they wait for the poisoned air to take them.
In stages, the men's histories are revealed. Young Norman is lonely and self-harming with a history of mental health issues that saw him run away from home, answering a Craigslist advert for free accommodation placed by Victor, who is haunted from an event in his youth precipitated by the negligence of his father.
Victor seems to have exclusive use of the upper hand, calling the shots and insisting that they confess to each other what has brought them to this chilling if civilised—an act of compassion that won't disturb the neighbours—arrangement.
When he demands some sign of commitment to their tragic scheme, Norman proposes they each handcuff themselves to the radiator, necessitating a rummage in a collection of bondage toys; it is later confirmed that the lease agreement between them involved payment in kind.
The uneasy power imbalance between the men is a constant, ominous rumble behind this look at abuse, suicidal ideation and mental health, a formidable triptych to conjoin meaningfully in just an hour.
This is Alex Maslin's debut play which he also directs and co-produces. This seems a little too much too soon, and the play would benefit from an experienced arm's-length advisor if not director, as there are some powerfully impactful lines in the text, but equally there are elements that are too unclear.
Without understanding his motives, Victor's stomach-churning self-mutilation seems gratuitous, included for shock value alone, and cutting his own tongue is an own goal when it leaves the character unable to say their lines clearly.
Neither man is likable, though Liam Bull's troubled Norman engenders some sympathy.
There is something effectively bullying about George Chron's Victor, but there needs to be more than self-hatred if we are to avoid seeing him as anything other than a reductive monster.
Sadly, there is no time for such character development in 60 minutes. Hopefully, Maslin gives himself more breathing space in his next play, because writers with ambitious ideas are the industry's pathfinders.