There could not be more fitting weather to drive in on my way to view Brad Birch’s psychological thriller Black Mountain than the dark downpour that had dominated the day.

Staged in the intimacy of MADC’s own Clubrooms theatre, this deeply unsettling and heavy piece weighed on the mind and brought the audience to the edge of their seats.

The plot not so much unravelled as it untwined, revealing its barbs and a spiralling twist at the end.

Birch’s work often explores the darkness of the human soul, but this play looked at how past darkness spreads even as it haunts the present.

The couple travel to a remote and desolate mountain lodge to work out their differences.

Director Adrian Buckle chose wisely with his excellent cast of three: with Mikhail Basmadjian and Antonella Axisa playing Paul and Rebecca – a couple who travel to a remote and desolate mountain lodge to work out their differences and attempt to reconnect following an obscure traumatic past event, which later transpires to be an affair on the part of Paul.

Basmadjian’s measured, solid and sensitive performance as Paul brought out the flaws and fears of a man who is aware of his mistakes and is desirous to make amends but he has no focused means to do so since he has lost Rebecca’s trust completely.

‘Black Mountain’ exposes the darkness within the human soul

Axisa’s portrayal of Rebecca was incredibly powerful because of the deliberate restraint that she couched it in. The full force of her vim seeped, rather than gushed out until the final twist, metaphorically reflecting the way in which their troubled past as a couple keeps haunting them and infiltrating their lives.

With the introduction of Erica Muscat’s Helen, who turns out to have been Paul’s now-scorned lover, the situation complicates itself and the spiral into darkness really takes its hold. Muscat was sneeringly deceptive in a dark manner that befits this thriller, toying with Paul’s fears and duping a seemingly convinced Rebecca.

Erica Muscat’s Helen turns out to have been Paul’s now-scorned lover.

These seemingly doomed tri-partite interactions are fraught with what has been ignored and left unsaid for so long, fuelling resentment and a desire for revenge which culminates in a violent end.

Romualdo Moretti’s brooding set design complemented the heaviness of the piece by the inclusion of the solid weight of the tree trunks dominating the left side of the stage, where the wilderness appears to blend into the indoor and domestic spaces on the right.

The situation complicates itself and the spiral into darkness takes its hold.

Light design by the inimitable Chris Gatt, accompanied by Stefan Scerri’s sound design, created the perfect balance between ghostliness and cold hard reality as the couple’s memories and past trauma flood back to torment them anew.

Black Mountain exposes the darkness within the human soul with a calculated deliberation which has become Birch’s calling card. This was certainly a fruitful collaboration between MADC and Buckle, which, in spite of its obvious heaviness, succeeded very admirably with the execution of a piece which was sharp and dynamic till the very nail-biting end.