SISTER NATIVITY
Drayton Arms
★★★½
“an effective production with great potential”
Sister Nativity (Emily Millwood) squints towards the bright yellow spotlight as she sits on her knees, speaking to her newly-born and newly-wedded husband, Jesus, on Christmas Eve. Tears stream down her cheeks as she ceases to hear his voice, having alienated her fellow nuns by insisting on her special gift. It is with this well-crafted image that the curtain falls on ‘Sister Nativity’, a 1957-play by the Portuguese playwright Bernardo Santareno, beautifully translated by director Sebastião Marques Lopes. The play introduces an ailing Mother Superior (Efè Agwele) who finds herself helpless to interfere in the growing friction among the nuns in her convent, especially when she is disobeyed by Sister Nativity, who believes she is able to speak to Jesus directly.
The stage is mostly empty bar a nondescript armchair from where Agwele manages to demand the room in her role as Mother Superior, the sick and elderly nun who rules the unnamed convent. She effortlessly switches between her character’s pitiful frailty and frightful rage, her compassion and her stern condemnation, putting on an impressive and compelling performance. Mother Superior’s volatility is offset by Jasmine Holly Bullock’s clearheaded, if sometimes slightly monotonous, performance of Sister Trinity, and the refreshing and bumbling naivety with which Chrisanthi Livadiotis plays yet another Sister, Angelica. Together with Millwood, they form a convincing and perfectly discordant ensemble. While the group collectively does take some time to pick up steam, it manages to build a real sense of urgency in the latter half of the play.
The sound design greatly adds to the sense that there is a real maze of halls and cloisters just off-stage. As the drama ostensibly unfolds while Mass is held in the nearby chapel, the sound of a singing choir in the background works very well to give a sense of the wider world in which it takes place. In fact, the stage seems almost quiet without the backing track, making me think that continuous convent-like white noise would help to further strengthen the effect. The lighting could have been more ambient, though the aforementioned spotlight in the final scene is beautiful, if a little cliché. The world of the nunnery is further conveyed through costume, although less effectively than through the tech – while I appreciated the uniformity of the nuns’ garbs, I only hope this run will make enough of a profit to invest in non-synthetic ones, as the habits looked a bit like Halloween costumes under the stage lights.
Regardless, this is an effective production with great potential. Lopes argues that Santareno’s work has been highly neglected in the UK. With his poetic translation and solid cast of actors, the director has managed to make a convincing argument for the value of staging ‘Sister Nativity’ in London today.
SISTER NATIVITY
Drayton Arms
Reviewed on 2nd December 2025
by Lola Stakenburg
Photography by Vasco Simões
Previously reviewed at this venue:
MAYBE I SHOULD STOP | ★★★★ | November 2025
FELIXXX | ★★★★ | October 2025
FRESH KNICKERS (AND A GIN AND TONIC) | ★★ | October 2025
ROSENCRANTZ & GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD | ★★★ | June 2025
DICK | ★★★ | April 2025
