Last updated 12:14, Wednesday, 28 May 2008

The Bogus Woman, Theatre by the Lake, Keswick, last night.

State of the nation: Krissi Bohn gives a passionate performance in The Bogus Woman

Whether you stagger away shocked by the casual, humiliating disregard for a human being’s rights, or whether you think this is one-sided theatrical politicking, one thing is certain – you will not see a more powerful individual performance in a theatre this year than that given by Krissi Bohn.

It is passionate and mesmeric. A solo triumph in which one actor plays in the order of 50 parts without once breaking the play’s undoubted spell.

An African woman, her family brutally murdered, herself a victim of multiple rape, flees for her life to Heathrow where the mental torture is only just beginning as she becomes ravelled up in a morass of racism, red tape, and cruelty.

Krissi Bohn ensures with her performance that you can not come away indifferent to the anger which simmers and burns within the play.

Kay Adshead presents one side of the story – that of a distressed woman who comes to Britain seeking hope and help and becomes once again a victim, this time of horrific, sickening treatment. Can this really have happened in this country in 1997, when the play is set? Is authority in its various forms capable of such shocking violation of the basic human dignity of the asylum seekers?

From Krissi Bohn, who relives the harrowing moments when she sees her family and her baby butchered, it is memorable, compelling stuff.

The Bogus Woman, simply directed by Zoe Waterman, is the first play to be produced in the newly extended Studio at the Lakeside theatre, with its traverse stage arrangement which works well in this instance, producing an intimacy with the audience.

If it were a court of law, of course, those accused of such appalling treatment at the detention centres would at least have the chance to defend themselves.

This portrayed them as unutterably ugly and despicable bullies. If such things truly happened then it’s a cause for shame on all of us who silently countenance this great injustice.

Whatever the truth, it’s a provocative and disturbing play that issues a challenge to its audience to go away and contemplate the shocking events they have just seen.

The Bogus Woman runs until Wednesday, November 5. Tickets cost £14/£10. Showing in the main house is macabre comedy Arsenic and Old Lace by Joseph Kesselring, which also runs until November 5. Tickets cost £8-£21. Call 017687 74411 to book.

ROSS BREWSTER