Review: Relative Sonics, Etcetera Theatre

Relative Sonics is the debut work of playwright and director Mingming Liu.  The cast and creatives are alumni or current students at Central St Martin’s Drama School.  The company met and collaborated at the School, many working in second or subsequent languages, with a love of theatre and the English language that is evidenced in many of the interactions for this work.

The staging is black box, with artful use of red studded cubes to provide furniture and depth, complementing a well-placed bookshelf for props and accents. Animation and projection suffer from relying on the back curtain to depict communication; often illegible or distorted due to both lighting and backdrop limitations. Nevertheless, the care taken by producer Hannah Ieong is clear. The performance makes good use of varied communication channels: in person, phone calls, texts and of course online messages.

Erica (Alina Zhou) and Yudun Wang (Edison) carry us through the years from the acknowledged invention of the Phonograph and recording/replaying of sound, to the all-consuming digital world in which we now live. The costume changes are deft, providing changes of shirt style and colour for Wang, and the switching from shorts to apron to overcoat across Erica’s journey.   

The scenes from the past and present are somewhat staccato, with long blackout pauses as staging is reset and a slow delivery, which makes concentration challenging. The gentle, yet poignant, telling of the relationship between Edison and Erica as teenagers, travelling to adulthood, is delicately written, with apt use of expletives to ground the modern storytelling and frustrations of 21st-century life.  Erica is endearing as she seeks her creative voice, looking out to the future and how she might present both her stories and herself.   Occasionally, not projecting fully, she makes the dialogue incoherent from time to time, which is a pity.  Edison, in stark contrast, really owns the stage.  His expressive facial expressions, coupled with the embodiment of emotions and vulnerabilities, are a pleasure to observe.  

Relative Sonics is confident in its exploration of youth, aspiration and the exploitative celebrity culture that technology has facilitated.   There are some tough questions posed around the visibility and value of an individual as they appear on social media, versus the person you interact with in real life.

Ultimately, this is a promising piece from Liu. The links to Edison’s invention are largely unnecessary as the audience invests in the Erica and Edison of the digital era; their friendship, communication and challenges.  It will be interesting to see where this piece evolves to… perhaps a book or a more fully developed play that is more conscious of perceptions of a digital world versus being human, compassionate and self-aware.

Playwright & Director: Mingming Liu
Producer: Hannah Ieong
Sound Designer: Jacky Jiao
Projection Designer: LJ (Leung Jai)
Lighting Designer: Zidi Wu
Animation Designer: Cola Le Fang
Stage Manager: Hongrui Yao

Relative Sonics has completed its run at The Etcetera Theatre