Review: TILLY NO-BODY: CATASTROPHES OF LOVE, Arcola Theatre

On the surface, Tilly No-Body: Catastrophes of Love has every element of a good one-woman show: a woman’s journey to gaining new agency, a compelling historical hook, and a exceedingly watchable performer. Given all these ingredients, it is striking how little this show has to say.

Writer-performer Bella Merlin is Tilly Wederkind, the wife and muse of Frank Wederkind, the German playwright best known for Spring Awakening, the sexually transgressive 1891 play that inspired the hit musical. Throughout their marriage, Tilly loses grip on her identity in the face of Frank’s jealousy, repeated infidelity and physical violence; this is all while giving herself over to playing Lulu, a recurring character in Frank’s work, and eventually a fictionalised – and heavily sexualised – version of herself.

Clearly fascinated by the tension between Frank’s radical treatment of women on stage and his history of domestic abuse, Merlin’s writing constantly flits from Tilly’s interior monologue to Frank’s writing about sexually troubled women, and back again. Also in the gritty grey area between truth and fiction is the fact that Merlin herself played Lulu several decades ago, also while in an abusive relationship.

But Merlin also seems stuck on how to push beyond the mere depiction of trauma. The reality of domestic violence is not conjured up with anything more sophisticated than Tilly miming a devil – a  literal one with horns – to represent her husband. Worse still are the mandolin ditties, composed by Merlin, that seem to punctuate every serious instance of violence Tilly experiences, one of which involves repeated stage whispers of the word “suicide”.

This darkly humorous treatment could have been offset by some deeper probing of the idea that Tilly is playing a cartoonish onstage version of herself. But the conceit of using some excerpts from Frank’s plays is underexplored; instead, Tilly just gives constant, irritating reminders to the audience that some of what they’re hearing is not her exact words.

In its conclusion, the show seems tonally confused between landing on Tilly’s marriage as a complicated relationship redeemed on Frank’s deathbed, and on Tilly as a survivor whose husband’s death gave her the strength to start anew. Both of these things can of course be true, but the show as a whole seems unsure how seriously it takes Tilly’s suffering.

The weaknesses in Merlin’s writing are redeemed by her manic energy as a performer, jerking about like a prima ballerina slowly coming undone. There’s also a certain knowingness to her version of Tilly, as though this is a woman constantly aware of being perceived. When she starts tearing padding out of her flesh-coloured bodysuit – Maggie Morgan’s costumes are excellent – there is a sense of a true self being revealed.

Similarly, set designer Kerry Jones’ vision of a decadent, decaying circus implies more interesting ideas about the nature of performance than are necessarily found in the script. Miles Anderson – also Merlin’s husband – directs, and his playful approach, full of jack-in-the-boxes and Punch and Judy puppets, is fun to watch without being gimmicky, lending visual interest to a story that otherwise struggles to balance humour and bleakness.

Tilly No-Body is clearly a passion project, with a specific vision of who Tilly Wederkind was in mind. But I still somehow coming away feeling more anger at the trivialisation of domestic violence than empathy for Tilly.

Tilly No-Body: Catastrophes of Love plays at the Arcola Theatre until 25 July

Reader Reviews

To post a comment, you must register and login.

Need more UK / West End Theatre News in your life?
Sign up for all the news on the Summer season, discounts & more...