MARY POSTGATE is an unsettling play; but Jay Parini's adaptation of Kipling's story begins in a light-hearted fashion.  Miss Fowler, first cousin once removed to Lady Bracknell, skates across the surface of manners and behaviour, with all the wit of an Oscar Wilde drawing-room scene.

Into this setting steps Mary Postgate - a 21-year-old orphan - engaged as a companion to Miss Fowler, and caregiver to her nephew Wynn.  Mary becomes like a mother to her wayward charge.  So when the unimaginable happens, she coils in wait for revenge.

Mary Postgate is an intriguingly dark character.  There is a feeling of weight and gravity about her, even in contrast to the upright Miss Fowler, a woman hemmed in and weighed down by social mores and emotional repression.  Mary's hatred of the Germans who have killed two of those dear to her is unwavering; but rather than processing it, she feeds it and it becomes her life's meaning.  That she sacrifices so much to this grief and anger is disturbing, and that her personal act of war brings her to such a state of peace is deeply shocking.

The mobile hanging from the ceiling in the intimate theatre at The Zoo casts the shadow of the Great War over the lives of these characters.  Set above a chest of children's books and toys, it reminds us that childhood games have turned into a very real adult war.  Mary Postgate reads less an anti-war play and more as a personal revenge play; she desires the "eye for an eye" form of justice, where suffering is not to be lessened, but shared.

Madeleine Knight stands out as the titular character in this play.  Her Mary Postgate is one dark night of anger.  It's like there's a storm brewing within; her grief, a constant friend, wells up just below the surface and is only barely contained.  She's well supported by the rest of the cast in this clean, crisp and well-paced production, directed by Hanna Wolf.

I was left unhinged by Mary Postgate: mainly as a result of her actions, but also because there is no moral retribution for her behaviour.  While I judge her, neither the author nor the characters do - and while she finds catharsis, I don't.  This I find deeply unsettling.