With the average life expectancy ever on the increase in the West, death is only going to become even more uneasy for us to deal with and further sidelined. It’s the shock of its arrival into relatively comfortable middle-class lives and the process of grief which follows that’s the subject of writer/director Pamela Carter’s theatrically bold new play, a co-production between her own Ek Performance company and the Traverse.

Domestic harmony brutally interrupted by the sudden departure of a loved one

Lucy (Kate Dickie) is cooking dinner with her spouse Jo (Paul Thomas Hickey), who’s fumblingly reflecting on the elusiveness of knowledge, until suddenly he proves elusive himself, disappearing from the stage without a trace in a piece simple but effective sleight-of-hand. Suddenly an ostentatiously odd teenager dressed like Frank Zappa (Lorn Macdonald) appears from behind the bewildered Lucy, speaking of irrelevant matters such as his fast metabolism. Soon enough he’s gone, and three guests arrive to eat the dinner she and Jo prepared.

Domestic harmony brutally interrupted by the sudden departure of a loved one; it’s all a big metaphor for death of course, condensing the whole grieving process into the events of one evening. It’s also aiming for Lynchian weirdness, with a plot hook right out of Lost Highway, only Carter is using the absurdity to mean something very recognisable: the bewilderment phase of bereavement. Performance highlights include Dickie’s emotionally raw lead and Macdonald’s arrogant adolescent, injecting some endearing energy into the play. Hickey, however, plays the spouse so camp you wonder if he’s disappeared from Lucy’s life for another reason. The title? Knowledge can desert us as abruptly as life, and it’s the complex chain of emotions that result which Carter has managed to capture in this evocative piece of work.

Showing at Traverse Theatre until 27th Feb