A woman in blond wig and sparkly skirt starts to talk but, before she can begin, a stranger who looks exactly like her (doppelganger, evil twin or apparition?) charges on to the stage. As the two figures circle each other, their eyes full of fear, the scene looks like it is raised from the pages of a Paul Auster novel or a postmodern noir. It makes for an arresting start to this original play about self-image and psychosis.
Written by Lisa Langseth and translated from its original Swedish by Rochelle Wright, it is a fable-cum-horror story. Atmospherically directed by Emily Louizou, it takes a few unsettling encounters between the protagonist, Daphne (Bathsheba Piepe), and her shadow (Ioli Filippakopoulou), to realise that they represent the split self: the private, self-loathing being and the public, Instagram-ready persona that speaks in mantras of self-improvement and wellbeing.
Those mantras are scrawled across Ioana Curelea’s deftly stage set, which is subterraneous and psychological: a black wardrobe and sound system daubed with white graffiti which bears aspirational messages about the “perfect self” and “getting to the top”, alongside the opposite: “ugly”, “pathetic”, “loser”, “cheap”.
These words clash inside the mind of Daphne, a young woman working at a swanky nightclub who repeats the rules for becoming her perfect self and acts out poses for social media posts. But reality comes crashing in with phone calls from her mentally ill father from his “psych ward” and her dingy flat is overlooked by a tree which she believes is staring at her and slowly inching closer.
Piepe’s performance feels genuinely fraught while Filippakopoulou, also movement director, very creepily manifests Daphne’s fracturing, doubling over, as if in pain, slipping out of the wardrobe or staggering across the floor. There are voiceovers, too, it all verges on the baroque but never gets hammy and there is excellently eerie music by David Denyer.
The ancient Greek story of Daphne is invoked in the plotline around the tree but the myth, of a naiad pursued by Apollo and transformed to escape his predatory love, does not take root fully enough. Its parts do not quite bloom or unify as a whole, but still contain enough dangerous excitement and intrigue to capture us.
• At Omnibus theatre, London, until 22 April.
