Veiled

Mid-Strife Crisis

Veiled

by Annabel Miller 

 Blend Productions at the Studio, New Wimbledon Theatre, 14^th June

Review by Brent Muirhouse

Regardless of the fact it was one of the warmest days of the year so far, entering a sold-out performance amidst packed seating at the New Wimbledon Theatre for a new play unequivocally indicated that Veiled was certainly a hot ticket.  What it didn’t necessarily indicate was that writer-performer Annabel Miller’s solo performance would also light up the stage; but within a few clever, incisive, and keenly relatable lines of dialogue, the rapturous audience attested immediately to its true quality.

Directed by Barney Hart Dyke, the play is split into four acts – Desiree (not Desree), Serena, Dinah, and Marianne – named after the character Miller embodies in each.  Veiled examines different arenas in the life of a fifty-something year-old woman going through crises: workplace attitudes to women, parenting, mental health, and relationships.  Whilst each act takes one as a main focus to build the narrative, it was impressive to see the themes emerge and re-emerge throughout the performance, without any specific throwbacks or stated connection between the four characters.

Treading the line (and the boards) of a dark comedy isn’t always as well-executed as it is here in Veiled, given the inherent darkness and sensitivity around these themes.  Fastidiously observed, Miller makes much of the narrative amusing and relatable – in many senses to all those in audience, in spite of undoubtedly different perspectives and positions on the experiences dramatised – yet doesn’t shy from shifting to some more emotionally hard-hitting moments.  In particular this is showcased in the final two acts as Dinah, who is struggling working from home and balancing a range of competing demands and challenges, and Marianne, who delivers a wedding speech with melancholic flashbacks, yet both have comic moments that serve to reinforce the storytelling (not least the repeated WFH phone calls from Trevor, the delivery driver of a well-known supermarket chain).

In the second act, we go back to school to a teacher’s office to meet parent Serena, called in due to an incident with her daughter.  Another admirable accomplishment is the switch in character and tone that Annabel Miller is able to conjure up from the first act (more below).  To that end said switch is twice embodied in the form of a between-act novelty song, firstly about menopause and latterly focused on ‘other people’s kids’.  Needless to say that both are certainly not safe for uttering in school without consequence, and are a brash yet welcome shout out to the audience to bridge the transitions of character and psyche.

The earliest act sees the introduction of Desiree, who is leading a workplace training session on ‘having difficult conversations’, which is the time the audience is submerged into the world Annabel Miller creates.  Yet this is even more so due to the lines being deliver straight out to those viewing as if they were participating in learning the three F’s (‘focus on facts not feelings’ a mantra almost too believably taken straight from a modern human resources handbook).  This style of performance, alone on stage talking to other unseen individuals, is highly effective at isolating the focus onto Miller’s characters’ stories in each act.  Perhaps this is why they are often hard-hitting underneath the relative zing and entertainment of the lines and their timing.  This first act was the one that quite literally set the scene for the play, and was perhaps the strongest (though Dinah comes a close second), partly because of its unexpected stray towards a slightly more left-field conclusion.

The programme notes states that the performer “had her own midlife crisis in 2020”, but Veiled is anything but a crisis.  In her exemplary writing debut, Annabel Miller has created something that richly deserved the standing ovation it received at the close.  As I left the theatre to a mixture of the fading sunlight and streetlights of suburbia, it struck me that the biggest crisis would be if others don’t get a chance to watch her perform the play in another run in the future.

Brent Muirhouse, June 2023

Photography by Esme Williams