Although written in during the heady excesses 1988, Dealing With Clair may feel even more relevant today. Amid housing affordability crises, soaring property prices and rental insecurity, Martin Crimp’s dark satire is surprisingly contemporary. Irregular Programming Inc delivers a gripping revival that exposes the moral compromises lurking behind the dream of home ownership, proving once again its flair for bringing intellectually provocative theatre to Sydney audiences.

Yuppie couple Mike and Liz piously insist they want to “do the honourable thing” by the buyer as they prepare to sell their London home. Crimp brilliantly weaponises that performative morality, lulling both his characters and the audience into believing this is merely a story about the cesspit rituals of real estate. It isn’t. The arrival of a mysterious cash buyer tears through that carefully constructed façade. What begins as scintillating social satire soon mutates into a psychological thriller fuelled by manipulation and menace. Chillingly, Crimp drew inspiration from the real-life disappearance of London estate agent Suzy Lamplugh, who was never seen again after meeting a prospective buyer in 1986.

Director Harry Reid expertly sustains the mounting tension, allowing the play’s civility to fracture by almost imperceptible degrees at the intersection of domestic realism, psychological suspense and moments of striking surrealism. Soham Apte’s deceptively simple set, drenched in bourgeois 1980s beige, uses sliding doors to create a striking shadow-box effect as polite public façades give way to darker impulses.Reid’s visceral sound design and Izzy Morrissey’s perfectly timed lighting design work in tandem, each transition precisely calibrated to expose the growing dread and moral rot lurking beneath.

Crimp writes spectacularly unlikeable characters whose entitlement, self-interest and moral evasions are as fascinating as they are repellent. His circular, hyper-sharp, meticulously polite dialogue disguises simmering passive aggression, exposing how readily ordinary middle-class people recast greed as virtue and self-interest as common sense. The ensemble handles Crimp’s demanding text with impressive assurance, capturing every shallow social nicety, awkward pause and carefully concealed barb with crisp control.

As Clair and Mr James, Olivia Hall-Smith and Daniel Fletcher are riveting, locking into a psychological chess match where every move is disguised by social decorum and professionalism. Hall-Smith gives Clair intelligence, ambition and unwavering composure, her brisk efficiency betraying a young woman determined to keep every interaction firmly transactional and towards the all-important sale.

Fletcher is mesmerising in his psychopathic restraint, benignly commanding the space with complete entitlement as every carefully measured word, prolonged silence and seemingly innocuous gesture pushes another boundary. This is the trap at the heart of the play: not overt menace, but impeccable politeness. James weaponises courtesy, while Clair remains caught in his web, conditioned by cultural and social expectations to remain accommodating, repeatedly suppressing her instincts until it is far too late.

Mike and Liz deploy the same polished civility in the service of entitlement, disguising snobbery and casual cruelty as good manners. Arkia Ashraf and Talia Benatar are superb as this smug well-to-do couple, bonded by sexual attraction and a mutual delight in their own self-mythology and brittle performativity, where image always trumps integrity. Benatar makes Liz all cold surface, every slippery smile and pleasantry carefully calibrated. Ashraf leans into Mike’s overbearing confidence, delivering almost every line with unwavering intensity, suggesting a hollow man who mistakes platitudes for authenticity.

Their attitude towards Anna, the live-in nanny who cares for their six-month-old daughter, is infuriating. She is treated less as a person than as another domestic asset, a modern form of slavery, while their daughter, unless she’s crying, barely registers beyond an item in the household inventory. Jade Fuda brings simmering intensity to Anna, her barely concealed contempt and tightly coiled resentment lending both humour and unexpected pathos.

Completing the stellar ensemble, Bayley Prendergast displays impressive versatility across three roles. He brings grounded authenticity to the tradesman who ironically discovers the house’s foundational crack, contrasting this against Toby, a swaggering, status-obsessed real estate alpha male intoxicated by 1980s hubris and excess. Prendergast also appears briefly as Anna’s Italian lover, weaving these sharply contrasting portraits of masculinity together to expose the line where genuine substance meets toxic performance.

Chilling, lacerating and deeply unsettling, Irregular Programming delivers both a brilliant revival and a damning indictment of hyper-capitalism, where profit and status eclipse humanity. It’s not an easy watch, but it is an incredibly compelling one. Once Crimp tightens his grip, there is no looking away. Don’t miss it.

Dealing With Clair plays at the Old Fitz Theatre until 25 July. See : https://www.oldfitztheatre.com.au/dealing-with-clair

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