I bought the book of this and then discovered I'd actually missed my chance to see it in Edinburgh on it's debut tour by a matter of days, and the blurb on the back actually refers to the end of the tour next year in the past tense, which amused me. Random trivia.
The scenes of the play are in a somewhat jumbled order as it follows the story from two different perspectives - the two sisters (to be played by the same actress - all the parts are doubled up). The story is an interesting one, and who actually kills Justine really isn't all that surprising, though there's certainly a couple of plausible endings. I'm not entirely sure what the point was in making the main story line a complete red-herring that basically never gets resolved, but perhaps I'm missing something. That said the dialogue is all well-written and I think I'd enjoy doing this as a performance piece since there's a lot of scope for a range of emotional acting (expecially playing 2 roles throughout).
The characters seem to revolve around the idea of pubicity, secrecy and image. The finality of Justine's death leading to news reports not only exposing her affair but also her life as a spy seems totally believable in the context of the play, but I find myself thinking in a somewhat outdated way that surely her employers would do everything in their power not to reveal that. It's something that's come up in various interviews with different actors I've been watching lately though, that everything really is in the public eye. Just about anyone can be looked up online and it almost doesn't matter how many personas you have, one will eventually link to another and the whole house of cards falls over. As in the play, it only takes one person recognising you and snapping a photo. In that light, it's a wonder how covert espionage is even possible any more.
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