John

American playwright Annie Baker is a proud fan of Anton Chekhov - Melbourne audiences were blessed by a beautifully understated staging of her adaptation of Uncle Vanya at Red Stitch just a few months ago. In her most recently completed play, John, it's easy to see why Baker vibes so effortlessly with the internalised, quietly turbulent micro-crises common in her Russian muse's characters.

Just like Chekov, Baker needs no thunderclap of calamity or an urgent, driving quest to stir up dramatic tension. Indeed, Baker's discipline is in allowing space and stasis to be her idee fixe. In this calm, unhurried space, her characters unfold with inevitability and yet, with such incisive individuality, our glimpse into their intimate, flawed lives feels almost voyeuristic. John is a masterful feat of dramatic writing, a new play with an old soul; nuanced, touching and astonishingly uncanny.

Perhaps Baker's most miraculous accomplishment is the multi-layered complexity she is able to extract from the most meagre of set-ups. A young and fractious couple, Elias (Johnny Carr) and Jenny (Ursula Mills), arrive at a quaint, chintz-filled B&B near Gettysburg, the location in Pennsylvania where much blood was shed during the American Civil War. It's an unconsciously apt setting for them to do battle as their relationship reveals its many wounds.

Despite this disharmony, their indestructibly hospitable hostess Mertis (Helen Morse) is eager (to a fault) for them to have an enjoyable stay. She wears her heart on the sleeve of her guest house, which is chock-full of trinkets, dolls, toy trains and a dilettante's recreation of a Parisian cafe in the breakfast nook. It's clear she is neither sophisticated nor cultured, and yet the depth of her lived experiences and her aspirations for romantic grandeur belie the cheap and cheerful veneer of her home.

A far more conspicuously complicated presence is Mertis' blind, eccentric and supernaturally alert friend Genevieve (Melita Jurisic). Her past has known horrors too, most notably the loss of both her sight and sanity, and yet she is a pillar of defiance and bloody-minded, unflappable survival. She reels off the tale of her madness with great zeal - it is a proudly worn scar, telling of the fights she has fought, some won and some lost.

It's no secret that MTC has a preference for naturalism, which in other recent productions has felt somewhat lazy. However, here the rich realism of the set is a vital element; it's the thoroughness of this world that gives it such persuasive power. Twenty-something city dwellers Elias and Jenny do not belong here and yet it is precisely this fish-out-of-water pressure which forces them to confront the distrust gnarling their relationship. There's also a lot of humour to be wrung from this culture clash, and director Sarah Goodes hits these comic notes with ease. But merely pursuing laughs could easily cause this production to devolve into a zippy sitcom, and this would unquestionably ruin the text. It's here that Goodes' skills are truly tested, but by resisting any urge to rush, by allowing this production to be monumental in its scale, the slowly building pressure of bottled-up secrets and unspoken hurts is all the more devastating when they finally shatter the stillness.

Morse and Jurisic are pitch-perfect in their characterisations, both individually and in the moving affection of the friendship shared by the two women. It is astonishing that Baker, at the age of just 36, has been able to capture a bond so intricately shaded and warmly weathered as that found between Mertis and Genevieve. Carr and Mills are familiar faces on the Melbourne theatre scene, and for my money at least, this is by far the most accomplished performance I have seen from either. It's a fine line to toe in judging the level of animosity, yearning, passive aggressive resentment, guilt and regret that eddies just below the surface of their difficult relationship, but almost without fault, they found this balance.

There are other narrative nods — some that almost feel distracting or superfluous — making the slightest of winks to a haunted house trope. But Baker is far too brilliant a talent to taunt her audience with red herrings, ghostly or otherwise. The inference is clear: it is their past, their infractions and their cloying mistakes that haunt Elias and Jenny. They are so trapped by the gravity of their breakup, they fail to see the edifying example right in front of them — two sage and tested women who are living proof that the unseen roads of our lives are more shrouded and twisting than we can ever imagine.

Melbourne Theatre Company presents John, until 25 Mar, at the Fairfax Studio, Arts Centre Melbourne.