As in a Pinter play, violence underlies dialogue and threatens in the space between words. Trevor Wilkie, 'father-fixer-peacemaker', is isolated and seemingly trapped. Murray, the withholding patriarch, maintains control through acts of cruelty, especially towards defenceless 'man-boy' Chris. Trevor's sons, Aiden and Harry, grapple ambivalently with their farming legacy. The family deals with multiple losses in repeating cycles of fear, shame, and blame.

Creativity is the counterpoint to despair. Carving in wood the hands of family members, painting a mural on the old EH, even cracking a stockwhip at the 'giant wind-chime' bottle tree: all provide a sense of hope. Ironically, possibility and insight are most directly expressed through the largely undeveloped female characters.

The Hands has the scope of a Greek tragedy – not only in its focus on the violence underlying familial relationships. Ineluctable fate seems to press on a family forced into painful reflection. The encroaching desert is, like the Greek Moirai, remorseless: 'It didn't like him, it didn't hate him; it refused to know anyone or anything.' Catharsis is evoked, but its form is not predictable. Orr is a restrained writer when it counts.