Big Smoke

Natalie (Amy Nostbakken) is an American painter selected for a competition that could win her a solo show at the Tate. Living in Soho, she struggles to find substance in the various exhibition openings and brunches with collectors that she must endure. Disappointing relationships and lack of inspiration send Natalie spinning ever deeper into inner torment in this one-woman show.

According to co-writer Nir Paldi, the challenge he and Nostbakken set themselves was to refocus the medium of physical theatre from body to voice. Whilst Nostbakken certainly has a voice, the decision to sing almost all the script doesn't allow for the kind of depth of character needed to save this story from the clutches of cliché. The score is resolutely attached to one—minor—key, from which it rarely strays.

Claiming inspiration from Virginia Woolf and Silvia Plath only adds insult to injury; where these women created characters imprisoned by their cultures and contexts, fighting for self-identity in a repressive society, Natalie comes across as quite self-indulgent, oppressed presumably by the sheer volume of canapes and champagne she is obliged to consume. Nostbakken's vocal ability and comic timing are impressive, and the a cappella concept is intriguing. But neither is enough to lend this work the complexity or ingenuity it desperately lacks.