Review: MYTHOSPHERE, Stone Nest

On Shaftesbury Avenue, right opposite The Palace Theatre with its Cursed Child, a venue which holds a mesmerising surprise lies between a Wing Stop and an educational centre. Stone Nest - an old Welsh Presbyterian church - is now home to an Anglo-Russian multimedia production with looks as luscious as its core matter is plain.

"Created, written, produced, and directed by Inna Dulerayn", the play/opera/film installation definitely is a feast for the eyes. A continuous stream of footage across the double-layered stage enriches the story, adding spatial awareness and pure visual magic to the fairytale-esque events. It's therefore a shame that Mythosphere's production value falls flat when its subjects are discussed at a limp pace and some preposterous ideas around mental health condition are introduced.

The less-than-beckoning rhythm also prevents any justification for the length of the two acts. The first - running at the one hour mark - sees a young girl struggling with intrusive thoughts and a deep fear of "losing her magic" all the while taking refuge in the Mythosphere when things get tough.

Her fairy friends are white, ghostly creatures, some moth-like and others angel-looking, that hover around her. She writes diary entries about her interpersonal problems and how she believes she can't be honest with her classmates about her powers. These paragraphs about her feelings of inadequacy, depression, and hopelessness are separated by operatic interludes sung by her magical companions.

The second part of the show - which stands at two hours and a half circa - is marginally more captivating beat-wise, but falls short in other areas. An ageing woman is sitting in her armchair, lamenting her counsellor's advice. She's been told she needs to be more in touch with reality and avoid blurring the lines between it and her imagination at all costs.

It immediately transpires that mental health is once again the focus, but Dulerayn's suggestion that people who deal with psychiatric disorders are the only magical beings in the real world is not only problematic on its own, but it opens up a discussion on the romanticisation of mental health. And, in 2021 and still in the middle of a pandemic, we should be past that.

Nevertheless, the stagecraft is absurdly beautiful. The actors are submerged by Masha Yukhananov's ever-morphing animations that go from cascading words to nature-inspired features. Trees look like lungs, and the universe is reminiscent of neurotransmitters. There is something primal and visceral about the made-up language that the fairy folk use when intoning their arias, too.

Mythosphere looks and feels like an expensive production that's undergone lots of visual work (that's paid off), but there is not much narrative substance and the plots are very predictable. The oneiric atmosphere and stunning staging can't save the redundant essence of the script (some cuts would help on many levels...) and the feeble arguments brought to the table.

It's astonishing in its whimsical imagery and the team behind is one to celebrate without a shade of doubt, but its treatment of depression and anxiety with a dash of maladaptive daydreaming is mostly trite when it's not straight-out baffling.

Mythosphere runs at Stone Nest until 9 October.

Photo credit: Helen Murray

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