“Mike Leigh’s excruciating comedy of bad manners is the sound of the suburbs, the noise of people trying to fill a void,” the critic Mark Fisher recently wrote in The Guardian. First performed in 1977, Abigail’s Party is set in Essex in the 70s and unfolds over the course of a single evening. Beverly and her husband, Laurence, host a small soirée for their new neighbors, Angela and Tom. Also invited is Sue, who lives nearby. Meanwhile, Sue’s 15-year-old daughter is throwing a party of her own. As the adults engage in hollow, pseudo-intellectual small-talk, simmering tensions, hidden desires, and veiled emotions create a suffocating sense of awkwardness and discomfort. Nadia Fall directs the production, giving Leigh’s female characters greater nuance and humanity.