THIS IS NOT ABOUT ME. Transfers To Soho Theatre

THIS IS NOT ABOUT ME. is the critically acclaimed debut play by Hannah Caplan. Following a sold-out run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the award-winning two-hander will transfer to Soho Theatre (Upstairs) for a run from 25th March to 18th April. 

 

The play follows Grace and Eli, two people in their mid-twenties whose relationship spans friendship, intimacy, rupture and repair. In the wake of a painful separation, Grace, a writer, attempts to make sense of what happened by writing a play about their relationship. But as the act of writing intensifies, what's true and what's imagined begin to blur, and the story starts to slip out of her control.

The roles of Grace and Eli will be reprised by Amaia Naima Aguinaga and Francis Nunnery, following their praised performances during the production's Edinburgh Festival Fringe run. 

The narrative moves between the past and present, with scenes from the relationship appearing in fragments and out of sequence, tracing its emotional fallout In the present day, Grace is seen composing the very play the audience is watching. As the story jumps across time, its meta-theatrical moments and shifts in form reveal how perspective and authorship can change, and how shared experiences are shaped by who is telling the story.

At its centre is a shifting power dynamic between Grace and Eli. As Grace frames the story as an attempt at processing and repair, Eli increasingly questions how their shared history is being represented - what is included, what is omitted, and whether Grace has the right to shape the narrative in this way. The play explores how intimacy can curdle into control, and how the desire to tell a compelling story, to be validated and believed as a competent storyteller, can come at a personal cost to those caught inside the narrative.

 

Towards the end of the play, a filmed sequence returns to the moment Grace and Eli first met, with younger versions of the characters appearing on screen. The moment offers a quiet, poignant reflection on the origins of their relationship and the complexity of friendship over time.

 

Throughout the production, live typing, high-quality film and multimedia elements are used to dramatise the act of writing and rewriting memory in real time. An intricately crafted, minimalist set - created by a collaborative team of visual artists working across puppet-making, carpentry, video design, illustration and fibre art - creates an intimate, flexible playing space for the performance to unfold. Sex, desire, shame, ambition and self-mythologising are treated explicitly and often with dark humour, as the play examines the personal cost of turning lived experience into art. 

THIS IS NOT ABOUT ME. marks the debut collaboration between writer Hannah Caplan and director Douglas Clarke-Wood, who also produce the work together. Developed over an 18-month period through a highly collaborative process, the production draws on Clarke-Wood's background in video design through WoodForge and Caplan's practice as a fibre artist, with both disciplines shaping the show's use of technology, multimedia and hand-crafted crocheted set design.

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