Review: LACRIMA (Barbican Theatre)
- Sam - Admin
- Sep 26
- 4 min read
Review by Isabel Benson
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
A wedding dress, a princess, silk, and fully embroidered pearls. You would think Caroline Guila Nguyen’s LACRIMA would be equal in bedazzlement – but far from it. The title is not ‘tears’ for nothing.
This is not a tale of pomp and pageantry, but of the human cost hidden behind the seams. What begins as the making of a royal wedding dress unfolds into a story laced with tension and quiet heartbreak. Impressive tension which builds with impending stress, domestic issues which infiltrate the workplace and the audience’s hearts, and a strikingly ‘hospitalised’ lighting design (Mathilde Chamoux and Jérémie Papin) give LACRIMA a chilling effect akin to a binge-worthy TV program. Playing at the Barbican for a strictly limited run, LACRIMA is jampacked with agitation but will leave you feeling sedated in your chair.
It’s hard to pin down a single overarching message, but that ambiguity serves the drama rather than hinders it. At first glance, Nguyen’s critique of the relentless pressures exerted by high-brand fashion labels on their international workforce feels like the central theme. Yet, the play’s emotional weight lies in the more subliminal story that threads through it: the unravelling of a family. The relationship between Marion (portrayed with exquisite precision by Maud Le Grevellec) and her husband Julien (Dan Artus) proves more devastating than you might ever expect from the play’s outset. Watching Marion navigate the torment inflicted by Artus’ chilling performance as a manipulative, abusive husband is a series of heartbreak you are unprepared for.
Their daughter Camille becomes the play’s most haunting emblem; a skeletal soul trapped in a child’s body, carrying the weight of her parents’ fractured marriage and trauma far beyond her years. Marion’s own physical injury to her shoulder, hinted to be the result of Julien’s abuse and worsened by the punishing demands of her labour, stands as another stark, visible reminder of the toll exacted by both domestic violence and systemic exploitation. This layered interplay between personal devastation and wider socio-economic critique is what gives LACRIMA its power: the sense that beneath the shimmer of silk and pearls lies a much more tangible array of human ‘blood, sweat and tears’.
Tension is a word I would use to describe the pervading feeling throughout. The Sound team, Antoine Richard and Thibaut Farineau, did such a commendable job at using sound to represent bodily function. The uncomfortable pulsing sounds which occurred towards the middle of the show were really disturbing, a constant memento mori making me think of the heart as it is moving towards an attack. Another great source of tension, displayed in a tastefully stressful way, was when Marion was speaking to the team in Mumbai, and the translator was speaking over her in order to convey her message. This subtle layering of voices made total sense on the outside but sonorously portrayed chaos. This was such an interesting juxtaposition of a real-life event contrasted with dramaturgical tension.
I want to applaud the play’s use of the screen. The video design, led by Julien Bechara and aided by Jérémie Scheidler, is genius. Juxtaposed with the vast auditorium, the screen amplifies the actors’ faces in such an intimate way that it is almost as if each member of the audience is looking through the same pair of binoculars. This device, designed by Marina Masquelier, is crucial to understanding the dimensions of the domestic experiences which dominate and torment Marion’s journey throughout the play.
Often, as I was watching the drama unfold, I felt as though I was in the middle of a TV series and kept having to watch another episode. Yes, the screen onstage reflects this feeling of mine, but more importantly was able to serve a much more important role in a dramaturgical function: its ability to magnify character. Not only was the acting so naturalistic and believable, but it was also visible! Too often we sit in the stalls, squinting to catch the flicker of an actor’s expression, but not here. The screen brought the smallest gestures, the subtlest shifts in emotion, into sharp focus, yes – like a TV program, but also with the added benefit of theatre’s immersive, atmospheric intensity.
Another reason why I loved the use of the screen was how it evoked the idea of a therapy appointment throughout, even when the drama suggested anything but therapy. Indeed, we open the show with Marion’s face as she is seen to pass out on FaceTime to her counsellor before a team of paramedics enter the building. From this point onward, the cliff-hanger is left as a constant reminder that, at some point, the lace workers’ esteemed dress project will end in disaster. The play ends with this same action, creating a neat cyclical structure which bookends the drama in tragedy.
I think it is important to note the ethical discussions in this show. When we are in the Mumbai workplace, we are reminded of how much pressure these workers are under, given stern requests to appear ‘ethical’ but within boundaries which do not allow for any ethical labour to take place. This is a very severe reminder of unethical practices around the world, as these Indian workers are clearly being manipulated and abused by the more high-status fashion houses in Europe. It is a heart-breaking scene when Abdul, the lace worker, is fired as a result of his loss of eyesight from overwork.
To touch on so many topics of tension is ambitious but expertly pulled off at the Barbican. Nguyen’s vision is handled with such complexity, but such an obviously acute message. With brilliant acting and a beating heart (both metaphorical and literal), LACRIMA is must-see theatre, and a show I hope London hasn't seen the last of.
LACRIMA plays a strictly limited season at the Barbican Centre until September 27th
For more information and tickets to the final performance visit
Photos by Jean Louise Hernandez