Emma or Emily – Cockpit Theatre

Emma or Emily, written and directed by Moon Kim, with music by Ábel Misha Gille Esbenshade, is an experimental play-opera that brings together spoken theatre, live opera, movement and multimedia. Emily Carmichael plays Emily, a failed opera singer who has retreated into domestic life as a housewife, who’s carefully maintained world begins to unravel when her old friend Emma, played by Alexandra Achillea Pouta, arrives. Her encounters with Emma draws out the parts of herself she has suppressed, and the boundary between the life she has chosen and the life she once imagined for herself becomes increasingly blurred. The opera singer she has tried to silence begins to resurface, bringing her artistic ambitions, insecurities and unresolved sense of identity back into the room.

The most striking aspect of the production is how confidently it works across different theatrical forms. It is a visual and sonic piece, with moments that feel deliberately fragmented and surreal. The live music, movement, projection and performance operate together to create a strong atmosphere, even when the narrative remains elusive.

Emily Carmichael is the standout performer of the evening. As Emily, she captures a woman increasingly unsettled by the banality and repetition of domestic life. Her performance moves constantly between reassurance, doubt, agitation and breakdown, and she handles these shifts with considerable precision. There is a capriciousness to Emily that Carmichael makes compelling, particularly as the character begins to question her own reality. Alexandra Achillea Pouta provides a strong counterpart as Emma. She matches Carmichael’s energy and brings a confident vocal performance to the piece, helping sustain the musical and emotional tension between the two characters. Their relationship is particularly intriguing because their identities seem to continually shift. At some moments they appear to be two distinct women, while at others they feel like different versions of the same person.

The set design is one of the production’s most evocative elements. The interior of the house is almost entirely white, draped in transparent plastic sheeting. It creates an image of purity and perfection, as though everything has been carefully preserved, and nothing is supposed to disturb the surface. As Emily begins to unravel, that sense of perfection develops its own dramatic tension. The composition by Ábel Misha Gille Esbenshade is equally important to the atmosphere. At points the music becomes deliberately disjointed, suggesting that something is beginning to fracture, while elsewhere it builds the tension and emotional rhythm of the scenes. The production’s use of projection and multimedia is also intriguing. One particularly striking sequence presents different versions of Emily in different visual styles, opening up questions about identity and the ways we perform versions of ourselves.

The production is full of interesting ideas. There are suggestions of gender, domesticity, artistic ambition, confinement and freedom, alongside the increasingly blurred relationship between Emily and Emma. The challenge is that these ideas remain somewhat open-ended, and I was left searching for a stronger narrative through-line connecting them. Is this a story about two versions of one person? Is Emily experiencing a psychological breakdown? Is the piece exploring the tension between a domesticated life and an artistic self? Each possibility is suggested, but the production does not quite settle into a clear dramatic trajectory.

This feels particularly important because the visual and sonic language is already so assured. The production has created a distinctive theatrical world; giving the narrative a few clearer choices would allow that world to carry greater emotional and dramatic weight. Emily’s relationship with her husband and her relationship with Emma, in particular, could be developed further to give us a stronger understanding of what is at stake for her.

As an experiment, though, Emma or Emily is an intriguing piece of theatre. It takes genuine risks with form and creates some memorable visual and musical moments. There is clearly a strong artistic language developing here, and I enjoyed watching the production find its way through theatre, opera, movement and multimedia. With further development of the narrative and the relationships at its centre, the different elements could connect with considerably greater force.

Emma or Emily was presented as part of the Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival 2026 which runs Tuesday 8 to Sunday 20 September 2026 at the Cockpit Theatre London.

Reviewer: Gaurav Singh Nijjer
Reviewed: 17th September 2026
North West End UK Rating: