CUT SNAKE, by Amelia Evans and Dan Giovannoni, Arthur, Fringe Hub Steps, Until October 8, 7pm, $20.

STAR RATING: 4

CUT SNAKE is mad. Hell mad. I loved it.

Arthur harnesses a highly physical theatre style to a narrative drenched in comic excess. It has a World According To Garp feel, and is up there with the craziest stories about grief ever told.

Three oddball characters (Julia Billington, Catherine Davies and Kevin Kiernan-Molloy) wrestle the unformed clay of youth, moulding magic and mayhem with every twist. The show’s about dying young and being the underhorse, inventing time travel and using ‘hell’ as a modifier; about dreaming big, eccentric dreams and running with them.

Expect hilarious clowning and precise caricature, backyard acrobatics and sock puppetry, lightning slapstick, high-altitude tangos and one glorious half-nelson. None of it feels contrived either. Paige Rattray’s direction achieves a fluid integration with the maximalist script (Amelia Evans and Dan Giovannoni). It’s a joyous, poignant, and incredibly funny ride.

 ***

Fourplay, by Sergi Belbel, Vicious Fish, Fortyfivedownstairs, 45 Flinders St Melbourne, Until October 9, 7pm, 5pm Sun, $27/17.

STAR RATING: 3

A couple (Liza Dennis and Scott Gooding) has designed a perfectly square bed. To christen it, they approach two younger co-workers (Kaitlyn Clare and Michael Argus). Through repeated games of seduction and repulsion, Sergi Belbel’s Fourplay provides all the curves and shadows of curves the bed itself lacks.

Vicious Fish and director Scott Gooding have been interpreting Belbel since 2004. This play is the final instalment in a four part series. As with the others, it’s a jagged, disorienting work.

A postmodern etude on the veils of intimacy, most dialogue is repeated twice in emotionally dissonant contexts. It’s weird and sad and unpredictably droll.

The female partners rise to the script’s daunting challenge: Clare ripe with erotic presence, waiting to be deflated, Dennis tightly wound, leaking anxiety and misanthropic urges. I could have done without the karaoke, though it’s an integral part of Belbel’s exploration of fetishism and sexual dysfunction.