A daring piece of dreamlike theatre.
Until Spring Comes, written by Chen Tao Shen and directed by Shuyi Alice Wang, tells the story of an actor in rehearsal for a production of the myth of Phaethon after going through a surgery that leaves her with a colostomy bag. This version of Phaethon is directed by her unloving boyfriend, who feels that this is his last chance at success. It is a play about frailty and about how we understand ourselves through our bodies, through our art, and through our relationships.
Until Spring Comes feels, in the best way possible, like a dream. Surreal projections and live cinema elements are combined in a way that feels like a cascade of images, blending into one another to form the feeling and tone of the play. Lynia Cao’s sound design does similar work, weaving music and recorded lines together. As in dreams, ideas seem to appear from nothing, fully formed, before dissolving again. The emotion of the play is stretched and moulded around the complicated mix of projection and sound design in a way which feels daring and fresh. It’s a hugely ambitious way to stage a story in any setting, but the fact that this has been achieved in Central Saint Martins’ black box studio is very impressive.
Nuo Cheng, the play’s sole performer, is at the centre of this dream-like staging. Sometimes they appear in triplicate through the projection; sometimes a film of them plays as they perform something else on stage. We feel that we are in their mind. Their performance is very moving. They have a mesmeric stage presence and an uncanny ability to play different textures of the same emotion. Through them, we see the complicated process of relearning a relationship with our body after sickness. It’s a performance that’s intimate and vulnerable, and actually more than that, it’s brave.
The writing is mostly very strong but occasionally feels a touch repetitive. In a less interesting staging and with a less strong actor, this would be a problem, but here it’s really not.
A particular highlight is a beautiful costume designed by Zoey Chen. Chen’s costuming feels just as ethereal as the rest of the play, a white lace suit with red gemstones sewn over where the large intestine would be.
It’s hard to find a precise word for it, but the play generates a kind of feeling that is very rare and precious. Watching Until Spring Comes feels like being allowed into the depths of a person’s psyche and to experience their memories as we do our own, in a series of overlapping images and feelings.
It’s not perfect, but it is something more important than that: ambitious and moving.