University of Oxford student company Labyrinth Productions take to the Oxford stage from Wednesday 5 to Saturday 8 November with Arthur Miller’s award-winning play A View from the Bridge. Ahead of its Oxford Playhouse run, we spoke to Rosie Morgan-Males and Natascha Norton, Labyrinth’s co-founders, to find out more.
How did Labyrinth Productions come together, and what drew you both to co-founding it?
At the core, we’re just two people with very high standards. We met working on a student show — I was directing, Tasch was ADing — and somewhere in the middle of that process, we realised we were chasing the same thing: detail, precision, and emotional honesty. I think the moment it clicked was when neither of us could handle the turf we’d used for that show set being even slightly wonky. That shared instinct for quality turned into a proper creative partnership.
Labyrinth was born not long after, at a table in Society Cafe in Oxford — the coffee shop where we’ve made every major decision since. It’s sort of become our headquarters in disguise. We wanted to build a company that treated student theatre as the microcosm it is — a space where professional standards should exist. The same questions apply: what stories are worth telling, who’s watching, and how do you make the work pay off?
In its first year, Labyrinth has staged work across scales and forms — from small, black-box studios to the Oxford Playhouse main stage — developing a style that embraces discomfort, control, and vulnerability. We champion bold actors and creative teams who take risks, and storytelling that wears its emotion openly. We’ve also started to branch into multimedia and film, which feels like a natural evolution of the kind of detail-driven work we love.
Looking ahead, our long-term goal is to transition Labyrinth from a student company into a professional outfit that makes theatre and film challenging form while staying rooted in human stories. For me, it’s my proudest achievement — and it still feels like we’re only at the beginning of what it could become.
Rosie, directing such an intense and layered play must be a huge task. How did you go about shaping the atmosphere you wanted the audience to feel?
I think the strength of A View from the Bridge lies entirely in its dialogue — it’s some of the most naturalistic, still writing I’ve ever read. Within that stillness is a masterclass in tension. We’re a long way from the lived experience of these characters, but the emotional truth is universal. My process has been about chasing that emotion. I ask the actors constantly, “How does it feel for you?” and that’s not a rhetorical question. It’s about finding the logic beneath the emotion — building up from what’s human and real, then letting it take shape in the space.
Design-wise, it’s about translation. Robert Icke once said adapting Greek work is like finding the right foreign plug adaptor — and even though he was talking about classical text, I think that’s true of performing any play to a modern audience. You’re not rewriting, but you are finding the emotional connection that lets the electricity of now flow through. It’s a lot of logic and layering: we feel like this, they feel like this. Most of the time, the emotion’s the same — it’s just about finding how to carry it (in this case) across time and sea.
Theatre is not “real” in front of you, but it’s something you make real together. Any play where you can embrace that with an audience and invite them into the fabric of creating the space is a treat. My whole creative team will laugh because they’ve heard me talk endlessly about the sliding scale from naturalism to abstraction — but that’s exactly how I view this piece. It’s about pulling the audience in and out of it: one moment they’re in a vast theatre, the next they’re sat right at the kitchen table with the Carbones. As a company, we’ve spent a long time unpacking how to reach that intimacy and truth. If the audience finds that push and pull uncomfortable — good.
Rosie, were there particular images, films, or pieces of music that inspired your vision for this production?
Music is always my way in. I grew up around choral music — that collective breath, that expansiveness — and it’s definitely shaped how I think about rhythm and atmosphere in theatre. For A View from the Bridge, I became really drawn to the tension between classical and electronic sound: strings and synths sitting side by side, creating something that feels both timeless and unstable. That became the spine of the wider design — a bridge between something old and something electric, alive.
I’ve always been led by sound more than image. Film scores fascinate me because they make you feel before you’ve even processed what you’re seeing. That’s what I wanted here — an emotional current that moves underneath the dialogue, guiding the audience quietly even in silence. I’m not someone who works from strict visual reference points; it’s always been a gut thing for me. The world of the play grows out of that pulse, that instinctive emotional landscape.
That said, I’ve found myself drawn to images of Brooklyn dockworkers from the 1950s — there’s a real physical energy in them. It’s a world built on labour and endurance, and that tension between exhaustion and pride seeps into every corner of the play. I think that raw, muscular physicality underpins so much of Miller’s writing — the sense of a community coming up against its own boundaries — and it’s something I wanted to capture in the atmosphere as much as the sound.
Natascha, as producer, you’re the anchor behind the scenes. What’s been your guiding principle in steering the production?
I really try to focus on fostering an environment of open communication and collaboration. I see producing as creating the conditions for everyone else to do their best work; from securing resources to maintaining a shared creative vision. Especially with a play as emotionally charged and iconic as Miller’s A View from the Bridge, it has been about balancing logistics with empathy: keeping things organised without losing sight of the heart of the story, and the people telling it, all while trying to create a safe space for everyone to learn and grow as creatives.
Natascha, what has surprised you most about the process of mounting a play of this scale at Oxford Playhouse?
I’ve been amazed by the sheer scale of teamwork required and how willing people are to collaborate on and give their time to a creative vision that they have faith in. So many different departments and creative minds have come together to make it all happen, and none of this would be possible without the effort of every single person involved in our fantastic cast and crew. There is also something surreal about seeing how the initial goal of staging a Playhouse show, that Rosie and I had more than 8 months ago, has grown into something that various people can now contribute to and enjoy. It has also shown me how much trust and adaptability matter; things change constantly and flexibility ends up being just as important as planning in a production of this scale.
6. If you could step into the shoes of one character in A View from the Bridge for just one scene, who would it be and why?
Beatrice. We’ve spent a lot of time in rehearsal carving her out, because the women in this story are so often overlooked – you really have to dig to find their full weight in the text. Beatrice is so hard to work out. I’d love to be inside her head for a scene – especially at the end of the first act. She’s such an enigma; you can feel everything bubbling under the surface, but Miller never lets us in. And obviously there’s a reason we don’t hear her inner voice – that absence is part of the play’s power. But making that silence deafening, making the audience feel what she isn’t saying, that’s the challenge.
As a female director working with female characters in such a masculine play, I feel a real responsibility to her. I love the idea that limits can become a creative force. Beatrice carries the story’s emotional truth almost invisibly. She’s the one holding the ground while everything else fractures. I think the beauty of her character is that she says everything through what she doesn’t say. Still, selfishly, I’d love to sit in her head for a moment, I think it would change a lot about the play though.