An unnamed young man bobs around in the ocean, in a broken and deserted submarine whose shell is ready to crack at any moment.
Around him, anthropomorphic jellyfish and pufferfish bob past, bubbling at him in a language he can’t comprehend.
Meanwhile, two elderly people live out their lives in a residential care home for people with dementia.
One, a man named William, seems almost fine, and can recite whole poems by Wordsworth to his daughter Claire.
Unnerving lapses
His lapses, when they come – for example, forgetting she was the one who gave him the bunch of daffodils he’s holding two minutes before – seem even more unnerving.
A woman named Annie, meanwhile, proudly if absent-mindedly proclaims the biography of a woman named Mrs Jones while her nurse Sandra attempts to hoover around her.
It’s a sad sight, but there’s also easy humour in Annie crumbling a handful of biscuit crumbs where Sandra has just cleaned.
Gradually, the stories of these characters come together.
Wonderful but poignantly dotty Annie (Anne Lacey) imagines Claire is her wife.
It’s a funny moment which reveals the sad truth that Annie relives the pain of her once-stigmatised relationship and her wife’s death over and over.
Meanwhile, the man in the submarine (Dyfan Dwyfor) echoes what’s going on inside William’s (Brendan Charleson) head, where he feels his mind is a cup of fresh tea that’s about to be poured into the ocean.
Lost, but very human
As both Claire and Sandra, Laura Dalgleish balances the lost but very human elder characters, while Dwyfor’s performance is packed with physical energy.
If it seems almost too much at times, then we can only imagine what’s happening inside the gently rocking William’s head.
Lu Kemp and Chris Stuart Wilson direct heart and physical tenderness into the characters, from a script by Laila Noble.
She is the worthy  inaugural winner of the Byre’s inaugural St Andrews Playwriting Award in association with Perth Theatre, Playwrights’ Studio Scotland and the University of St Andrews.
The Man in the Submarine is at Perth Theatre until Saturday, February 11. www.perththeatreandconcerthall.com
