The Confessions review

Setting out to build an epic story from the events of an unremarkable life, Alexander Zeldin’s tender, truthful drama follows stifled, unhappy Alice across an 80-year period, from the tentative hopefulness of her childhood in post-war Australia to her twilight years in a declining contemporary Britain.

Following on from the bleak social commentary of Zeldin’s Inequalities trilogy, this is a more focused, more personal piece, inspired by conversations Zeldin had with his mother during lockdown. Zeldin’s direction is dynamic, using split-second reconfigurations of the set to give rapidly passing scenes the fluidity of overlapping memories. Much of the naturalistic dialogue is delivered in a breathless rush of competing voices, with lines trailing off or being pointedly interrupted to signal the power dynamics at play between the speakers. But there are moments of perfect silence and complete stillness, too, stretching pauses that powerfully underline the most significant moments of Alice’s life.

Marg Horwell’s flexible set is constructed as a corridor of proscenium arches stretching away from the audience and, symbolically, into the past. Shifting flats and layers of velvet curtains are drawn back one after another to reveal glimpses of the domestic spaces Alice passes through on her journey towards self-fulfilment.

Music, composed by Yannis Philippakis of indie band Foals, is impactful – if sparsely – used. Mighty distorted rumbles sound like a medley of ships’ horns and dragging chains, becoming almost overwhelming before resolving into swelling, euphoric melodies.

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