9 Circles
Park Theatre, London N4

THIS absorbing psychological thriller based on real events follows Private Reeves’s passage through hell, as his brutal war crimes undergo the scrutiny of the military hierarchy, politicians, psychiatrists, clergymen and lawyers.

The 9 Circles equate to Dante’s descent into hell with each new circle representing a different perspective and judgment on the young man’s actions.

Bill Cain’s taut script explores who is really to blame for the atrocities of war as experienced by a Texan, white-trash youngster with a personality disorder who only finds a role and an identity after enlisting.

The immoral idiocy of the Gulf war provides the backdrop for his traumatic spiral downwards from honourable discharge to courtroom sentence.

Directed by Guy Masterson, this tense and thought-provoking production shifts swiftly between the contrasting levels with Joshua Collins’s damaged soldier trapped at the heart of the glowing, red circle stage.

His demanding performance is nuanced and convincing avoiding any sentimentality or self-pity.

Incomprehension, anger and frustration dominate his outlook as the psychological, moral and legal authorities attempt to bend his understanding to their perception.

The talented supporting cast of Daniel Bowerbank, Samara Cohen and David Calvitto create the broad spectrum of memorable characters.

An articulate lieutenant giving Reeves his marching orders, a manipulative attorney and psychiatrist coaching and evoking responses, a sinful prison pastor and grandstanding trial lawyers proclaiming their versions of the truth are all involved in Reeves’s infernal passage to some kind of damned self-discovery.

Not without humour, Cain’s script intelligently uses and modernises many of the horrors of Dante’s Inferno without ever sounding contrived and as with the original poem the central character’s descent asks questions about our own culpability.

Inspired by the recent trial of a Russian soldier for crimes committed in the Ukraine, the play analyses our involvement and any rights we have to judge those thrown into the mayhem of conflict.

Some of the scenes are slightly overextended and the final sequence a touch self-indulgent, but this production will tighten before going on to the Edinburgh Festival where I expect it to garner rave reviews.

Runs until July 23. Box office: parktheatre.co.uk.