I once described a Wooster Group production to a prospective theatre date as a “massage for the brain”. She was intrigued and tagged along. She and her hyper-rational brain then spent two hours beside me in quiet agony. Six years later, I texted her to say I was giving them another try, joking there might be a plot this time. She did not ask for a ticket. Probably for the best.
Nayatt School Redux by the Wooster Group is less a play than a controlled act of disorientation. Conceived as a reconstruction of a partially lost 1978 production, giving center stage to T. S. Eliot’s The Cocktail Party, it embraces fragmentation as both method and message.
It begins with Kate Valk, a long-time Wooster Group member and deadpan narrator, who delivers an avalanche of archival detail about the original production. At first, it feels almost comically tedious – like being trapped in a long, affectionate but meandering monologue from a relative you don’t dare interrupt.
The narration gives way to a partial reconstruction of scenes, blending Eliot’s moral universe with the eerie, increasingly disturbing intrusion of a horror record. Any attempt to extract a coherent narrative feels beside the point. This is theatre that actively resists understanding.
Under the meticulous direction of Elizabeth LeCompte, the performers execute with astonishing precision, synchronising with archival footage like a living echo. The discipline is undeniable, even as meaning dissolves.
Watching it feels like entering a madhouse, one that strips away the hyper-rational, efficiency-driven habits of a contemporary (and increasingly AI-shaped) mind. It asks: must theatre provide clarity, catharsis, or even sense? Or can it instead function as ritual: a space to surrender control?
Not for everyone. But for those willing to abandon expectation, it’s a fascinating, almost therapeutic reset.
Nayatt School Redux runs at the Coronet Theatre till the 25th April 2026.
Reviewer: Klervi Gavet
Reviewed: 21st April 2026
North West End UK Rating:
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