Oxford Theatre Guild are at The North Wall Arts Centre, Summertown, from Wednesday to next Saturday with a new production of Edward Albee’s A Delicate Balance. The guild calls this “a dark, funny and often painful play with sharp and witty dialogue”, in which a seemingly well-adjusted suburban existence is undercut with menace.

This production follows hot on the heels of a critically acclaimed sell-out run at the Almeida Theatre. Edward Albee won the Pulitzer Prize with this play and is also famous for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

A Delicate Balance is set in the living room of a comfortable suburban house in America — a nice house in a nice neighbourhood. Agnes and Tobias live comfortably together but have an unwelcome house guest in Agnes’s sister Claire, who drinks like a fish and plays the accordion. Then there is their daughter, Julia, who comes rushing home to her parents when yet another relationship fails. This time husband number four has proven a dud.

Into this hotbed come Edna and Harry, their neighbours, carrying suitcases and asking, pleading, to be able to stay. Why? Because something has frightened them so much, they can’t bear to stay at home.

This is a play about the dynamics of families and friendship, and even more about what happens when we evade obvious truths and turn our backs on ourselves. Agnes thinks she has the balance of power in her family but comes to realise matters are only held just so.