According to the dictionary, Kvetch is a piece of American slang, derived from Yiddish.

The word can be used as a verb: to kvetch is the act of complaining persistently, usually in a whining manner.

Used as a noun, a kvetch is a chronic complainer, or a nagging complaint.

As the playwright Steven Berkoff says, we all worry about many things that nag away at us.

Whatever we worry about, this play is dedicated to us.

“Kvetch is a study of the effects of anxiety on the nagging kvetch that keeps you awake,” says Berkoff.

“It is the demon that wishes to taste your blood and sucks at your confidence.  For many who can’t live in the now, this is a real and terrible problem.”

“We are like icebergs slowly moving through life and seldom, if ever, showing and revealing what is underneath.”

Berkoff believes if only we could voice the thoughts in the back of our heads, then how much truer our conversation would be.

Kvetch lets us look at the tensions and frustrations seething under the surface of domesticity in a marriage that has run out of steam and with characteristic blend of humour and irreverence Berkoff allows the audience to hear what the characters are really thinking.

Frank is a textile salesman with a stay at home wife, Donna, who suffers from excruciating self-doubt and fear that her sex life is over, resulting in her outrageous sexual fantasies.

At work, Frank is known as the kvetch because he has developed kvetching into an art form of the highest anxiety order. Even telling a joke makes him suicidal for fear of forgetting the punch line.

The action of the play is set around Frank’s pain and guilt about not being a success in his family environment where all have their full measures of low esteem.

Hal, a timid and fearful work colleague who is invited to dinner, has no idea how to cope with social situations. He dreads what to do at night now his wife has left him.

George, a wholesaler with whom Frank does business, has fallen for Donna, while Frank’s mother-in-law adds to the stress with her perfect bad timing and bowel movements.

As the characters try and maintain a civilised exterior with each other, they take turns kvetching to the audience about how they truly feel, and how insecure they are about the impression they are giving.

Director, Nicholas Jonne Wilson, says that ever since his days as a drama student, he has regarded Steven Berkoff as an inspirational mentor.

“Berkoff has always spoken to my soul,” says Jonne, who has directed a number of the writer’s works both professionally and at Questors.

“This is a style of theatre that gives back to the actor all his mimetic and creative skills, not bound by the constraints of naturalism. Here, you are bound only by the limitations of your imagination.”

“Kvetch is a cathartic play that cannot help but make you feel better about yourself. It is rude, irreverent, sexual, funny and very powerful.”

This production contains adult sexual content. (Recommended ages 15+)