Review: LETHE at the King’s Head Theatre, London
Harpy Productions, a female-led collective of “Wicked Women Telling Weird Tales”, kindly invited me down to London this evening to see and review their latest production LETHE. (Fun fact: I’ve been saying this wrong all week. It’s actually pronounced “leeth-ee.”) I’ve just got home and, even though it’s late and I had planned to write this up tomorrow, I couldn’t wait to jump on here and tell you all about this haunting new one act play.
LETHE is written and produced by Noga Flaishon and directed by Micha Mirto. The movement director is Coral Tarran, the sound designer is RODENT (B Stewardson), the lighting designer is Adi Currie, and Katie Pratten is Harpy’s co-founder (alongside Flaishon) and producer. LETHE stars Sarah Cullum as Alice and Eleanor Harper as Daphne/Past Alice.
Sarah Cullum as Alice in LETHE. Official production photo.
What’s it about?
In a cyberpunk-inspired near future, LETHE Enterprises is a organisation leading the field of mind augmentation technology. Alice, a young woman suffering from severe PTSD, volunteers as a subject and asks for three years to be removed from her memory.
With an implant in her skull to block her memories, Alice no longer remembers what happened to her or why she sought help from LETHE in the first place. She cannot even remember consenting to take part in the experiment, though video evidence from her past self proves that she did.
So with no memory of her trauma, she’s free… right? Well, perhaps not. Confused, angry and distraught, Alice tries to understand who she is now that a huge chunk of her life is missing.
Any content notes?
LETHE deals with trauma and traumatic memory from sexual assault. While there are no explicit or graphic depictions/descriptions of what happened to Alice, the aftermath and her responses to various triggers are shown in detail.
The show makes use of flashing strobe lighting.
There’s a significant amount of swearing in the script (multiple uses of “f*ck” and “sh*t”). The age guidance suggests that LETHE is suitable for ages 15+
I’d like to commend Harpy Productions for working closely with a consultant from AVA (Against Violence & Abuse) on this production, and also for explicitly stating that anyone who finds the content triggering is welcome to step out during the performance and then return if they wish.
LETHE: My Review
We begin with an almost bare stage, furnished only by a single chair and a shiny reflective flooring that makes the stage look like it is covered in a thin layer of water (this is cleverly utilised later in the play when references are made to a feeling of drowning.) As we take our seats, the room is filled with haze and thumping, ominous music. The small scale space used (in this case the King’s Head Theatre Pub) adds to the boxed-in, almost suffocating atmosphere. As the lights go out, a repetitive voiceover welcomes us to LETHE, an organisation on the cutting edge of human mind augmentation.
For the next hour and ten minutes, the two performers take us on a journey through a mind gripped by an unnamable horror as Alice, dropped into this twisted and backwards wonderland, desperately tries to follow the rabbithole of memory and is blocked at every turn.
To say that I was gripped by this play is an understatement. I’m not entirely sure I breathed for 70 minutes!
Sarah Cullum as Alice in LETHE. Official production photo.
Sarah Cullum, as Alice, is a ball of restless energy. With fluid physicality and a vast and constantly changing emotional range, Cullum absolutely sells the disorganised and unruly nature of trauma. Eleanor Harper is equally excellent, at times playing Alice’s supportive but vulnerable little sister, Daphne, and at other times playing Alice’s former self. Dressed all in black, she stalks Alice like a shadow, always - like the memories - just out of reach.
Sarah Cullum as Alice and Eleanor Harper as Daphne in LETHE. Official production photo.
Throughout this play, I was reminded of the book The Body Keeps the Score by Dr Bessel Van Der Kolk (a seminal text on psychological trauma which I read for my PhD.) Van Der Kolk argues that our bodies hold onto traumatic experience, retaining the memories even as our minds try to block it out. Which is, of course, exactly what happens to Alice in LETHE. The play asks the uncomfortable and complex question: can a person who has survived trauma ever meaningfully forget?
Sarah Cullum as Alice and Eleanor Harper as Daphne in LETHE. Official production photo.
Much of LETHE’s power lies in what it leaves out as much as in what it includes. With only hints, we piece together what must have happened to Alice prior to her memory erasure. For us as for her, the details remain slippery and just out of arm’s length. With only voiceovers and RODENT’s creepy and atmospheric soundscape, we get an uncomfortably close inside look at a sinister and mysterious organisation and the abuses that go on within its walls and within the minds of its subjects.
LETHE is dark, visceral, claustrophobic. Brilliantly written, grippingly performed and masterfully directed, it’s a nightmarish glimpse of the worst things that can happen when unchecked technological advancement and capitalism merge.
If you liked Black Mirror, you’ll love this.
Where to get tickets
LETHE runs until this Saturday, 12 November, at the King’s Head Theatre. Tickets are a bargain £15 (£12.50 concessions) and can be purchased directly from the venue.
Disclaimer: I received a free ticket to LETHE in exchange for this honest review. This did not impact my views on the show, which are entirely my own.