For Snow Angels, in the Cube at Project Arts Centre, the audience sit on three sides around a set that combines realistic, solid structures – walls with light fittings and doors that opened – and more abstract design – the floor and sofa are made from wooden pallets and there is a door lying on the ground. An image of falling snow is projected onto to a screen tilted like a ceiling and suspended above the stage. The wide configuration lets us think we are seeing more than we are; a lot of the action happens off stage.

When the play begins we are introduced one-by-one to the three characters. They have just moved in together and this is the first morning they have woken up in their new home. We get to know them and their relationships to each other slowly. We learn a lot about Sebastian (Michael Hough) from his younger brother Oscar (Ger Hough), who mocks Sebastian’s “gritty, inner city novel” but also seems afraid to knock on his door and wake him. Later Sebastian quizzes Oscar about Jim (Des Hickey). Oscar doesn’t say much other than “he’s my friend”. The way he says it however, suggests that Oscar doesn’t have a lot of friends. As a result, the audience are given a number of different versions of each character. There’s the way they are talked about by the others, the way they see themselves and the way they really are in front of us. Everyone is telling stories about themselves but as it becomes clear that they are trapped in the house with no means of escape, these different versions are slowly stripped back and we see the characters at their most base and most vulnerable. While it is intriguing to learn about the characters and watch the relationships between them develop, it doesn’t take us anywhere new. While I was interested in the characters, I never got enough information to really feel for them. There were too many false leads and basic questions left unanswered. I never understood why they had decided to live together.

The ending was also unsatisfactory, so much so that I felt like maybe I had missing something. Maybe I did, but it could also have been purposely left open-ended. There was an air of mystery about the play – the mysteriously locked doors, the characters that are spoken about but never appear, the discovery of a rabbit in the bread bin.

Christine Dwyer Hickey can write great dialogue and she has created three interesting characters. It’s a shame that they so little happened to them over the course of the play.