LACRIMA at the Barbican Centre as a UK premiere, is a beautifully presented, large-scale multi-lingual play by acclaimed writer and director, Caroline Guiela Nguyen. It’s immaculately researched and acted with nuance and gentle humour as well as poignancy and intensity, bringing multiple threads together with effective intention.
LACRIMA uses the creation of a wedding dress and its decorated train for an imaginary English princess’s wedding as a vehicle to explore the lives and costs to those craftspeople who work in haute couture, despite often being located far apart across the world and working out of sight. There are secrets in this underworld, with silence demanded and learnt.
Some of those who work in the Paris atelier become known as characters in the play, along with the single embroiderer of the princess’s train who is in Mumbai, intent on making his masterpiece. The audience learns that the best embroiders in the world are located in specialised workshops there. The audience is also introduced to the last three Normandy lacemakers still working in a lace atelier, largely descendants of those women who made the historic veil that is to be worn by the princess and which she wants to be reproduced on the train of her gown. She will wear this train for less than half an hour on her wedding day. The difficulties its creation presents are enormous. The princess, in turn, however, is subject to the demands of a ‘palace’ which cares only for its own status by way of her appearance on the day and not at all for the real-life consequences of ill-advised and impossible demands.
The ostensible designer of the princess’s gown, dressed here in track clothes and a leopard print cap, does not emerge as a figure to respect. He brings only ego and stress to all involved, shouting demands to the atelier over FaceTime from London. He is also without regard for practicalities. Meanwhile, the head of the Paris atelier, Marion, is conscientious and likeable. Alongside her in the atelier work multi-generations of her family.
Interactions involving two grandmothers on FaceTime are gently hilarious, wonderfully performed. The insistent domestic clamour of family members on a woman of ability as she attempts to focus on her most important professional role is excellently described.
Scenes involving the dedicated embroiderer in Mumbai are always powerful. A screen above the stage shows the sort of work he is doing by hand, close up throughout. The diligence and patience required become almost painful to watch. How extraordinary these craftspeople are. How under-rewarded. As they make beauty for the ages, for the super wealthy to display now.
One of the clever aspects of this show is that while it opens up the exquisite world of haute couture, it also quietly makes its audience question themselves on the impact of their own less costly clothing. Clothes we can’t seem to stop buying. Caroline Guiela Nguyen is Vietnamese and will no doubt be aware of the long-distance impact of the clothing choices we make every day here in London.
There are numerous individual narratives and perhaps the one problem with this long show is that though each of these is legitimate and riveting, at times memorably searing, the great number of narratives extends the length of the play in a way that can be difficult for some of the audience to manage.
The set design is gorgeous and clever by Alice Duchange. It shows the Paris atelier, with a large square screen hanging above the stage, providing subtitles and depicting global connection by way of displayed supposed FaceTime calls. At the same time as the relevant actors face positioned cameras and perform into them on stage.
LACRIMA is an enjoyable, clever and stimulating show, crammed with ideas. A bit too long. But fabulous.
Review by Marian Kennedy
Paris, 2025. A prestigious fashion house receives an important commission: to create the wedding dress for a British royal princess.
Bringing together a British fashion designer, a Parisian fashion house, three French lacemakers and a beadworker in Mumbai, it’s an intense and arduous process, all for a dress that will spend mere minutes in the spotlight.
While, in the real world, everyone involved is bound to secrecy, in this gripping and cinematic show, their fates and efforts – their dreams and their tears – take centre stage.
PERFORMERS
Dan Artus
Dinah Bellity
Natasha Cashman
Charles Vinoth Irudhayaraj
Maud Le Grevellec
Anaele Jan Kerguistel
Liliane Lipau
Nanii
Rajarajeswari Parisot
Vasanth Selvam
ON VIDEO
Nadia Bourgeois
Charles Schera
Fleur Sulmont
VOICES OF
Louise Marcia Blévins
Béatrice Dedieu
David Geselson
Maya S. Krishnan
Jessica Savage-Hanford
CREATIVE TEAM
Writer and Director Caroline Guiela Nguyen
Artistic Collaboration Paola Secret
FSL, English, Tamil Translation Nadia Bourgeois, Carl Holland and Rajarajeswari Parisot
Co-Lighting Designers Mathilde Chamoux and Jérémie Papin
Music Jean-Baptiste Cognet, Teddy Gauliat- Pitois and Antoine Richard
Sound Antoine Richard and Thibaut Farineau
Costume Designer and Couture Pieces Benjamin Moreau
Set Designer and Props Alice Duchange
Video Designer Jérémie Scheidler
Motion Designer Marina Masquelier
Wigs, Hair and Make-up Designer Émilie Vuez
Casting Lola Diane
Stage Management Stéphane Descombes and Xavier Lazarini
Dramaturgy Trainees Ryser and Tristan Schinz (TnS drama school students, dramaturgy section, Groupe 48)
Directing Trainee Iris Baldoureaux-Fredon
Sound Trainee Ella Bellone
Dramaturgy Assistant Hugo Soubise
Artistic Consultants Juliette Alexandre, Noémie de Lapparent
Recorded Music Quadar Adastra-quatuor à cordes
LACRIMA
Barbican Theatre
25 to 27 September 2025
