Tag: 5star

REVIEW: This Is Not About Me

Published on by Ke MengLeave a comment

Rating: 5 out of 5.

A strikingly inventive exploration of intimacy

What is intimacy? Is it awkward? Is it exhilarating? Is it something that will inevitably hurt? Is it negotiation over micro-powerdynamics, or a zero-sum game? Written and designed by Hannah Caplan, and directed and dramaturged by Douglas Clarke-Wood, This Is Not About Me acutely explores the shifting meanings of intimacy through Grace and Eli, a pair entangled in an intricate, long-standing relationship.

The design situates the show within multiple spider-like nets, with a trolley-bed at the central stage, and a projection screen behind. A pillow on the bed reads “Things we hate about each other”, followed by another declaring “Things we love about each other”. The pair meets after a long while to unwind their past. 

The first 20 minutes may feel a bit chopped up. There are witty exchanges and word-plays, but they are often lost amid overly frequent scene transitions, awkward puppetry, and indistinct video projections. Nonetheless, the play precisely captures and transfixes the awkward atmosphere of the pair whose history spans over intimacy, friendship and almost destruction. Interestingly, there is a kind of inverted parallel at work: while the narrative unfolds in reverse chronological order, its emotional intensity grows progressively deeper, barer, and much more unfiltered.

The use of subtitles is one of the best, if not the best, I have ever seen, perfectly reflecting what Grace indulges in as “contradiction and pretence as flirting”, while sitting in tension with the stark bareness of her “I love sex” speech. Their puppetry-based sex scene, in that sense, becomes a curious synthesis of both – something at once ultimately raw and predominantly pretentious. 

The show finds its strongest footing in the latter half, where it turns more metatheatrical, becoming a play about Grace writing a play about Grace and Eli, where their power-dynamic parallels the power-dynamic between those who have pen and those who have not, about the authenticity of self and how that self is (re)presented in other’s stories, as well as about physical theatrical presence and their visualised counterpart. 

One scene is particularly convincing. Eli (Francis Nunnery), in physical presence, interacts with a projected image of Grace (video designer Inigo Woodham-Smith), appearing almost like lying together. In the meantime, the physical presence of Amaia Naima Aguinaga, the actor of Grace, “puppeteering” Nunnery through those nets of ropes, thus embodying her fantasised imagery of Eli. Repulsed, Eli avenges by counter-writing a screenplay that polishes his own phallocentric fantasies.

The show ends up with the pair becoming absolutely bare about how they feel (including a fart joke), and the projection features their first meeting years ago. This dramaturgical and directorial decision somehow loses its momentum and feels a bit inadequate and undernourished. However, this does little to diminish its overall achievement, which offers probing perspectives, refreshing theatrical explorations and an exposed intimacy not just between Grace and Eli, but between the show and the audience.

This show runs from 25th March until 18th April. Tickets here.

REVIEW: Sunset

Published on by clemencxLeave a comment

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Grief, virtuosity, chaos, and sunlight — SUNSET had it all, and then some.

Titled Sunset, the programme itself traced a kind of emotional arc, from intimacy and loss to absurdity, virtuosity, and finally clarity. It opened with Ottorino Respighi’s Il Tramonto, a setting of Shelley’s The Sunset, and one of the most quietly devastating works of the evening. Scored for soprano and string quartet, it tells of love abruptly cut short: a young woman awakening beside her dead lover, and carrying that grief throughout her life. Sarah Aristidou embodied this world completely. Aristidou stood centre stage barefoot, draped in a flowing, pale gown with a muted green cape, evoking something between a Greek statue and a mythological figure, her stillness as expressive as her voice. The music’s chromatic richness was matched by her ability to move between fragile lyricism and something almost recitative-like. It felt less like a performance and more like witnessing a moment suspended in time.

From this introspection, the concert pivoted into dazzling theatricality with Antonio Pasculli’s Oboe Concerto on themes from Donizetti’s La Favorita. Pasculli, often dubbed the “Paganini of the oboe,” wrote music that pushes the instrument to its absolute limits, and François Leleux rose to that challenge with irrepressible verve. Leading from within the orchestra, he brought a sense of play that transformed the stage dynamic, weaving operatic lyricism with brilliance, the oboe almost becoming a singing voice and conductor in its own right. The northern French oboe player is exuberant, communicative, and endlessly engaging. The final flourish drew immediate emphatic applause, and his Bach encore was a nod to the approaching Easter season.

If the first half had already traversed grief and brilliance, György Ligeti’s Mysteries of the Macabre detonated into something altogether more unhinged, in the best possible way. Drawn from Le Grand Macabre, the work is a tour de force for soprano, sung by the delirious character Gepopo, chief of the secret police, attempting to communicate an impending apocalypse. Aristidou seized this with astonishing commitment. Beginning unseen, her voice emerged from the balcony behind the audience, immediately destabilising the space. As she moved through the hall, the performance became theatrical, immersive, and gleefully disruptive. By the time she reached the stage, interrupting, provoking, and playing off the conductor, Paul Watkins, the piece’s manic energy, teetering between urgency and absurdity, was fully realised. A well-timed joke from the podium, likening her character’s frantic authority to that of a Reform Party figure, landed perfectly with the audience, sharpening the work’s satirical edge. The orchestra matched her every move with remarkable precision, echoing her cries, outbursts, and sudden shifts of character with almost comic exactness that heightened the sense of chaos. Her vocal agility was staggering, but it was her dramatic instinct that made the performance unforgettable. She didn’t simply navigate Ligeti’s chaos; she revelled in it.

After the interval, Franz Schubert’s Symphony No. 5 offered something entirely different: lightness, clarity, and a kind of youthful optimism. Composed for a modest ensemble, its charm lies in its restraint. Under Leleux’s direction, Sinfonia Smith Square captured this spirit beautifully. After the intensity of the first half, it felt like stepping into an elegant and joyful sunlight.

What made Sunset so remarkable was not just the calibre of its performers, though that was undeniable, but the way the programme itself told a story. From the transience of life in Il Tramonto, through operatic passion and virtuosic display, to Ligeti’s surreal apocalypse and Schubert’s serene resolution, the evening traced something very human. It was, in every sense, a complete experience: thoughtful, theatrical, and performed with exceptional artistry. 

Sunset was a one-off performance on 29th March, presented as part of the London Chamber Music Festival. Tickets for other shows at the Sinfonia Smith Square Hall can be found here.