Memory, suggests this latest show from theatrical innovators Fevered Sleep, is like a house, with the past stored safely away in different rooms. But what if that house is derelict and the rooms completely empty because memory has been destroyed by trauma?
The woman at the centre of this work has been in an accident. She remembers nothing. She does not know who she is or recognise her family and friends. All she knows is that she is a photographer. She is, as she describes it, "pure future. No past".
Only through photographs can she try to piece her life together, map out an identity for herself, and so pours over old pictures, waiting for the flash of recognition. And when it comes it is devastating, unspeakably terrible.
Written With Light takes the audience on a journey that runs in parallel to the woman's story. First we wander through the tunnels and dead ends of the Undercroft, discovering objects and strange sights and sounds: a corridor full of poppies, a child's small red coat, a huge white rabbit, three old school desks, the sound of children playing. It's only during the subsequent performance that the significance of what we have seen begins to be appreciated and understood. We bring to bear our own memory, the snapshots that we carry around in the houses of our minds, and apply them to the story that unfolds before us.
It's a fascinating idea, and if Fevered Sleep do not quite manage to pull it off, it's because of too much ambition rather than a want of it. Some of the irritations are merely logistical and easily solved - there is, for example, too much hanging around during the installation element of the performance. But the overall structure of the piece is more tricky. David Harradine's exquisitely written script attempts to meld the tale of the amnesiac woman with the story of the birth of photography, and while both stories are interesting in themselves, there is insufficient theatrical tension between the two to create the kind of emotional collision that the piece requires.
We need more of this kind of theatrical courage, though, not less of it. And if you wrap up warmly enough, Written With Light offers London's most unusual and intriguing theatrical experience.
· Until February 3. Box office: 020-7960 4242.
