[Performance Analysis:] UNSPOKEN, WAC Arts, London.

My Theatre Mentor, Lee James Broadwood, analyses Unspoken, WAC Arts, London. Photography Credit: Ivan Sokol

This analysis has been written in the new Letters from a Mentor format introduced in July 2026. For more information on this format, visit this publication.

Dear Giorgi,

It was wonderful to see your work, which is at its heart a meaningful presentation of repression, shame, self-denial, and self-atrophy, within the queer community. There are some really rich emotive moments in this performance, along with some eye-catching visuals in the projections you, Ana, have designed. What works particularly well and is perhaps this performance’s strongest aspect is the palpable chemistry between all cast members. Ali, your intimacy work, and the ensemble work at large that you have all done allows for an excellent legibility of character dynamics, with relationships being credible and feeling substantive. 

One thing I would like to discuss further with you all is how the narrative structure could be enhanced to improve audience intrigue, relatability, and thus engagement. There are some poignant and thought-provoking ideas in your text, Giorgi, and I would just recommend teasing these out measuredly across scenes to allow enough time for them to truly settle into audience consciousness and resonate. Your narrative structure is quite filmic at the moment in the brevity of the scenes you present, and I would be keen to have us sit longer with the characters as they deal with their conflicts live, in real time.

Many significant plot events either occur off stage and interstitially between active scenes or are revealed to us through reflections in monologues. Most significantly, this is the case for the revelation of Nicolas’s suicide. This revelation is a hugely significant plot event and an inciting incident, in many ways, for Mark’s character development. While I was very impressed by the masterful and rare manner in which the dialogue presents this revelation — through allusion and focalisation through emotional response, rather than explicit and explanative description — I do have several ideas for us to consider in order to reveal this information in an even richer way, drawing out intenser emotivity but also allowing for stylistic consistency in performance.

On the topic of Nicolas’s suicide, currently we have no indication of his decline ourselves, despite Mark’s claiming to have foreseen this. Nicolas seems frustrated and distant, yes, but not suicidal. For this to be such a pivotal event in Mark’s life, clarity and exposition are vital.

Photography Credit: Ivan Sokol

I understand from this text that your base initiative is to draw us straight into the action of each scene, and so one suggestion to build on this would be to combine revelations — that Mark is emotionally unavailable, that he feels Nicolas is too attached to him and not the project, that Nicolas is suffering because of the lack of clarity in their dynamic, etc. — into one, longer opening scene, where we can see these conflicts, raw, developing, unfolding, surmounting to build tension by way of stacking up into one tangible discomfort and suffering for the two characters. Currently, this staccato and fragmented narrative type isolates each of the developments — and with significant time gaps between each — allowing them to feel distant as well as slighter. 

Pacing and climax are key to building tension, and I would be more than happy to discuss how these developments I’ve mentioned, which are already present in your performance but as dormant seeds, could be tightened to ensure clarity, legibility and intrigue in your characters, their profiles, and their dynamics. 

As I’ve been able to write about only some aspects of the writing alone here, it would be great for us to discuss more aspects of this and of your performance at large. I’ve made a list of some of the areas I would be keen to support you on, marked from what I consider to be low to high priority for your specific performance, but, of course, do let me know which aspects you find important to explore, as well:

• Inclusion of multimedia: ensuring clarity and consistency in mode and performance style when incorporating contrasting types. (High Priority)

• Choreography: ensuring variation, legibility, and intrigue, in movement. (Low Priority)

• Topography and semiotics: spatial consistency and realism, and enhanced blocking for character dynamics expositions. (Medium Priority)

• Theme and motif: exploring the butterfly as a catalyst and contextualiser of performance content. (High Priority)

• Presentation of Mark and Nicolas: profiling, characterisation, and acting style. (Medium Priority)

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