Theatre

Princess

Alan Hindle | Wednesday 17 August, 2011 11:04

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Atmospheric, with black and white images and films projected across the entire stage giving it the feeling of a Man Ray dream, Princess is about a girl who has recently been through some sort of tragedy. Her powerful father has had her cloistered away with a priest to recuperate and has hired a new nurse to look after her. But nobody is who they at first appear to be, and there is an underlying and strange power structure at work in this spooky, ghostly house.

Alfred Hitchcock said that an audience would rather be confused than bored. Princess definitely left me confused. It constantly teases with questions and unfinished sentences, hiding everything in plain sght without ever telling you what it is you’re looking for. What happened to the girl that she had to be shut away? What happened to the last nurse? Why does this new nurse suddenly become such a bad influence? Why is there a live-in priest and what sort of odd, morally flexible wing of the church does she come from? As with the best surrealism there are no answers in Princess. There is only the outward appearance of a narrative (at least, which I could understand) while deep beneath there are churning possibilities which are never really explained.

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