DECIPHERS

The Coronet Theatre

★★★★

“a beautiful, poignant reflection on migrant lived experience”

Immigration continues to spark fierce debate in the UK, yet beneath the headlines and rhetoric lie deeply human experiences. ‘Deciphers’ is an earnest exploration of the psychological toll exacted by navigating new languages and cultures, rooted in the quiet disorientation of life on foreign shores.

‘Deciphers’ blends movement, sound, silence and speech with striking visual metaphor. Naishi Wang and Jean Abreu begin by wordlessly cataloguing their audience on a sprawling paper strip, the colourful newspaper clippings and indecipherable scribbles evoking a detective movie (or psychotic breakdown). After holding their work aloft, as if for our approval, they crumple it determinedly, the paper crackling and glinting like fire. Wang tries crushing it with his entire body, but it refuses to disappear. What follows is a shared physical journey through frustration, loneliness, and the relentless choreography of self-preservation.

Created and performed by Wang and Abreu with dramaturgy by Guy Cools, ‘Deciphers’ is rich in symbolism. The observational opening immediately evokes otherness. The crushed paper ball is a lingering symbol of shame, unprocessed trauma and discarded identities. A spoken section in the performers’ mother tongues is heartbreakingly interrupted by the English phrases ‘we have to continue’ and ‘not enough’. However, the ending lacks weight. When earlier movement motifs return, they feel familiar rather than developed; spoken word doesn’t return, missing an opportunity to show growth. While this reflects the unending nature of adaptation, some refinement would give it the impact it deserves.

Wang and Abreu’s expressive choreography captures inner and outer worlds, balancing raw vulnerability with controlled façade. What stands out is the balance of individuality and commonality – each performer moves with a unique language, yet their vocabularies remain in dialogue. This underscores the fact that no two migration journeys are the same despite shared challenges. Their physical language is rich with unexpected shapes and striking lines, executed with precision and emotional clarity.

Olesia Onykiienko’s music and soundscapes elevate each moment, shifting between abstract textures and structured rhythms. Most striking is the use of silence, punctuating movement with ambient tension and allowing stillness to speak with unexpected intensity.
Ivy Wang’s visual design is quietly arresting: the empty white stage reads as a vast sheet of paper, evoking both possibility and the uncertainty of relocation. Casual costumes reinforce key themes, allowing individual identities to emerge within a shared aesthetic.

Lucie Bazzo’s lighting design is both conceptually sharp and visually arresting. Bright white light evokes the external world and invisible barriers within it, while softer tones create intimate, internal spaces. Tonal light bars echo the performers’ costumes and literally shine light on hidden traumas, which is an inspired detail. Spectacular multicoloured shadows created by additive colour mixing beautifully convey complex, shape-shifting migrant identities.

Wang and Abreu deliver striking emotional intensity, their bodies speaking volumes through fluid, often contorted shapes executed with remarkable clarity and control. Both excel in non-verbal communication: movement, expression, and vocalisation are deployed with precision, underscoring the importance of physical language in a new country. Abreu’s strangled sounds when he just can’t find the words are especially affecting. The choreography balances individuality and connection, side-by-side solos showcasing each performer’s strengths and synchronised moments reinforcing their shared experience, though a few sections would benefit from tighter timing.

‘Deciphers’ is a beautiful, poignant reflection on migrant lived experience, unfolding with emotional depth and a rich sense of humanity. While a little sombre, it’s a moving ode to the human condition, no matter where life takes you.

DECIPHERS

The Coronet Theatre

Reviewed on 23rd October 2025

by Hannah Bothelton

Photography by Maya Yoncali

Previously reviewed at this venue:

NARAKU 奈落 (ABYSS) | ★★★½ | September 2025

MEDEA | ★★★★ | June 2025

EINKVAN | ★★★★★ | May 2025

PANDORA | ★★★★ | February 2025

STRANGER THAN THE MOON | ★★★ | December 2024

U-BU-SU-NA | ★★★★★ | November 2024

DECIPHERS

★★★

“quietly and powerfully atmospheric”

Bertolt Brecht, during a long train journey from Ausburg to Berlin in 1920, wrote a poem he titled ‘Stranger than the Moon’. Germany at the time was still attempting to rise from the wreckage of the First World War and it was a slow, disruptive journey. Brecht knew that his poem wasn’t particularly good lyrically and that not many people would read it, but he already had a musical accompaniment in his head thus securing its place in popular music. A century later, the Berlin Ensemble – established by Brecht and his wife, Helene Weigel in 1949 – have taken the folk song’s title to create a portrait of his life in words and music. In true Brechtian style, it is a disjointed affair. At times rambling and obscure, but quietly and powerfully atmospheric.

The two actors shuffle onto the stage resembling a couple of prisoners, or factory workers, clad in seaweed-green overalls. Paul Herwig represents Brecht’s (aka B.B.) voyage from cradle to grave while Katharine Mehrling seems to be portraying his alter egos, his consciousness and desires; and the women in his life. The chronology follows a buckled, linear course along which we only find our way by picking up breadcrumbs. Scraps of biography littered among the torn-out poetry – often disconnected and hard to follow. Performed in German with English surtitles the show describes the emergence of Brecht’s personality, beginning in the womb, his later rejection of the class he was born into, his love lives, experiences of war, his exile, return home and finally his death.

Adam Benzwi is at the piano throughout. A shadowy but formidable presence he underscores the emotional content, with subtle crescendos into the musical set pieces. Mehrling’s voice floats above the accompaniment in rich, gorgeous tones. She has a style plucked straight from the Weimar era. A Lotte Lenya for the twenty-first century. She sings more than she speaks while for Herwig it is the other way around. He has a playful quality to his diction and a singing voice that is more character than perfection, resembling a ‘Baal’ era Bowie when he slips into English.

Although it is not made very clear, Brecht’s life story is being told in three distinctive parts. The days of the Weimar Republic and his first taste of success; his exile to Europe and then the United States; his return to East Berlin after the Second World War. Unfortunately, we learn very little about his life. The use of a vast video backdrop sheds no more light on the history either, and we feel there are missed opportunities which Oliver Reese’s static direction amplifies. At two hours, with no interval, the indulgent moments begin to claw at our patience. Mehrling provides some variety of expression through inspired costume changes and a more dynamic performance. We keep coming back to her voice, which is the show’s main saviour, and which lifts it from its uniformity.

The closing moments of the evening chart Brecht’s final days, and a quite beautiful melancholy closes the show. ‘Where are the tears of last evening? Where is the snow of yesteryear?’ the couple sing, from ‘Nanna’s Song’. Brecht was aware that, as he put it, ‘death is half a breath away’. Throughout his life he suffered from a chronic heart condition. Even music could induce palpitations and frequently his heart would beat too fast. Although “Stranger than the Moon” is unlikely to affect us in any similar way, it does, indeed, touch the heart.

DECIPHERS

The Coronet Theatre

★★★★

“a beautiful, poignant reflection on migrant lived experience”

DECIPHERS

The Coronet Theatre

Reviewed on 23rd October 2025

by Hannah Bothelton

Photography by Maya Yoncali

Previously reviewed at this venue:

DECIPHERS

DECIPHERS

DECIPHERS

STRANGER THAN THE MOON

The Coronet Theatre

★★★

“quietly and powerfully atmospheric”

STRANGER THAN THE MOON at The Coronet Theatre

Reviewed on 4th December 2024

by Jonathan Evans

Photography courtesy of Berlin Ensemble

Previously reviewed at this venue:

STRANGER THAN THE MOON

STRANGER THAN THE MOON

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