MARA at the Hen & Chickens Theatre from the 9 – 11 October 2026
“Interesting concept, but Mara falls into the trap of becoming repetitive.” ★★
MARA, written by Dr Erini Konstantinidou and Robin King and directed by Konstantinidou, is a psychological thriller following the story of a woman becoming trapped in the basement of an office building, running out of time to make the final custody hearing for her eight-year-old daughter. As she remains there, panicking and alone, she is faced with visions, memories and fears from her past that cause her to make regretful decisions with potentially life-changing consequences.
Although an incredibly interesting concept, MARA falls into the trap of becoming repetitive and it is underdeveloped in its portrayal of her character. Konstantinidou and King presented Mara, played convincingly by Angela Peters, at a heightened state of panic from the very beginning of the play, leaving the story and Peters in a difficult position to build from. As a character her emotions are understandable, she is in a moment of great pressure as not getting out of this basement could mean losing custody of her daughter, a nightmare situation for any parent. Presenting a character’s psychological state on stage is a very difficult task and a one woman show allows the audience to completely connect with Mara’s personality and through telling her own story, creates a brilliant opportunity to make us empathise with her and give those critical moments even more depth. However, the play and direction focussed more on circling Mara’s emotional state than presenting the narrative, leading the 60-minute piece to feel much longer as we watched Peters scream and breakdown a number of times, with the repetition taking weight away from each of those scenes and leaving me unclear on elements of the story in between.
Peters’ portrayal of MARA as a woman on the very edge was believable and invested. This is a challenging play to perform for one person, but Peters maintained stamina and consistency throughout. There were times where Peters could have had more clarity and projection on stage, some lines were swallowed by the soundscape or lost within her panicked state making it difficult for us to connect with what she was saying. Her strongest moments came as she multi-rolled and embodied other people in the story, particularly the pregnant and judgmental friend she meets at the very beginning who is picking other women apart for not wanting children. She has a comedic, posh, almost whining tone as she tells her children off in front of Mara, creating a mother I’m sure many audience members and parents would recognise from the school gates. Having different characters gave the play interesting changes in pace and energy and I wish we could have seen more of this variation throughout the performance.
The use of set, atmospheric sound design by Lefteris Douros and claustrophobic lighting design by Matty Arakcheev build the isolation of this play well. In particular, the lighting design helped to differentiate between when Mara was speaking to the audience, trapping her in a cold spotlight, and when she was in the basement alone. The mix of naturalistic sound effects, underscored with increasingly tense wider sound made it feel as though something was closing in on Mara. Bringing the inside of her head into view on stage. The direction of this play can develop to add further layers to the world the production design has clearly and cleverly begun to create.
MARA is a concept with great potential, focussing on a subject that many would find interesting to explore, with a clever design and moments of performance having the seeds of an isolating and intriguing production. But ultimately the script falls into emotion over story leaving the audience with little to grasp on to. A clearer focus on communicating and developing the narrative to have more variation could match up to the atmosphere they are beginning to create.
