Theatre Review: Empty Room

Music’s a weird thing, isn’t it? There’s nothing quite like it, except for maybe smell, for conjuring memories and feelings, whether you want it to or not. Certain songs will always take you straight back to certain, precise, moments in time and all of us, if pressed, could come up with a pretty coherent soundtrack to our lives.

I’m not sure all of us would want to though, unless you’ve led a curiously uneventful life entirely untouched by anything sad or upsetting. And fewer still would want to turn that soundtrack into a one person show. It takes a particular kind of balls to do that.

Lady balls, it turns out. Because this is exactly what Empty Room, the debut solo show from musician and theatre maker Miriam Gould, does. Hers is a hell of a soundtrack and a hell of a story. But it’s not just her story - it’s her rebellious jazz singer mum’s and her heroin addict jazz saxophonist dad’s too. Gould plays both of them, herself at 14 and narrates the show as herself (now). As I said, lady balls.

I love the way this show is constructed so that it opens out from what you initially think it is to what it actually is very slowly. It starts off charming and witty, with 14 year old Miriam enthusing about Shostakovich and the power of his music to be both playful and express his deepest, most profound feelings. We then meet mum, Rachel, who talks about her youthful rebellion, her hopes for her daughter (making it clear what is going on, character-wise, for the first time) and her love for her addict husband. Then comes dad, Sal, physically affected by the drugs but enthusing about the power of music and the effect it has on him. A little back and forth between Rachel and Sal follows in which it becomes apparent what the show is really about: Miriam facing up to her dad’s death (in real life as in the play). Young Miriam then comes back and gives a very similar speech as her opening one about Shostakovich, except this time we know what’s going on. She’s talking about him to avoid talking about her dad’s death. As she says in part of her narration, doing the play is part of her coming to terms with his death in real life. The line she addresses to him, which I’m paraphrasing, ‘I like doing this because it feels like you’re talking to me’ is incredibly moving. It also reminded me a bit of Fun Home, which is certainly no bad thing. 

Thematically this is a Big Play with some Big Targets and it nails them. The power of music to heal and to help us escape, to cheer us up and to help us wallow in our sadness, as required is beautifully expressed through all of the characters. As is the idea that family is important, and complicated. The forming of identity is in there too, particularly interestingly in the discussion about rebellion. Rachel and Sal both push back against their parents in some way (parents whose identity is of course formed by their own experiences, as Holocaust survivors in both of Rachel’s parents’ cases) whereas Miriam is given more freedom as a child and develops into a much more rounded human being, as far as I can tell anyway! 

She’s also almost irritatingly talented. Not only does she narrate and play three characters, and of course write and devise the whole show, she also sings and plays the violin beautifully. I’m super jealous. She’s so charismatic, so energetic, so watchable. The characters, and I am conscious that that’s probably not the right word, she creates are vivid and completely unique from each other despite the fact she only changes one item of clothing for each one - and puts them all on at the same time at the end to emphasise the point that she is carrying her parents, and her younger self, with her. A subtle trick, but a clever one. It’s a really accomplished as well as a really touching performance. At only an hour long, I would happily watch it several times back to back too.

The whole production is accomplished and touching and I left the theatre smiling, a bit sad and completely captivated. It’s a great piece by a great artist. It deserves to be seen, and loved, by lots and lots of people. But you’ll need to be quick to catch it - there’s one more performance, on August 9th (TOMORROW). Hopefully another run will follow soon. Miriam Gould is certainly a name to watch out for.

Empty Room is at the Cockpit Theatre on 9th August as part of the Camden Fringe.

My ticket for this show was kindly provided by the production and I sat in the third row to the right of the seating block (which is unreserved bench style, hence me not being able to give you a seat number).