When Tom turns up at his dead boyfriend’s family farm, he gets more than he bargained for in Quebecois writer Michel Marc Bouchard’s play, adapted here through Brazilian company Cena Brasil Internacional’s mud-spattered production. While Tom’s lover’s mother Ágatha knows nothing about her son’s romantic life, his brother Francis is a brute who spars with Tom to create an unmistakable sexual tension. Tom becomes a kind of cuckoo in the nest before all hell breaks loose when a woman turns up claiming to be the dead man’s girlfriend. 

While the tone of the psychosexual interplay in Bouchard’s work is decidedly Pinteresque, Rodrigo Portella’s production takes it into more unhinged territory on Aurora dos Campos’ set. With Armando Babaioff (who has also written the translation) playing Tom, the physical exchanges with Iano Salomão as Francis are delivered with furious intent, while Denise Del Vecchio’s Ágatha and Camila Nhary as the woman get caught in the crossfire of a man’s world. 

Tom At The Farm, Pleasance EICC, until 24 August, 3.30pm; main picture: Zanine Tome.