REVIEW: LONG AFTER THE LABYRINTH by Jonathan D’Young at Upstairs at the Gatehouse 21 October to 8 November 2026
‘Ambitious exploration of identity ’★★★★
A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for, asked Robert Browning. Long After The Labyrinth matches theatrical ambition with a long reach into history, myth, identity and imagination in a story spanning decades and millennia.
A young girl on the island of Crete hides in a tree as her family are taken away to their doom. This is 1944, and the Nazis more or less eradicated the entire Jewish population of the island. A clever child, Rena (Genevieve Dunne, affecting throughout a journey from childhood to motherhood to old age) escapes the shipwreck that will kill her family and most of her community to make her way in the world.
She takes with her a hidden Jewish identify and also her identity as a Greek, exemplified in the necklace her father (Noah Young, one of many of his roles) has bequeathed her and the myths of her ancient civilisation, particularly that of the half-man, half-beast Minotaur.
The play is constructed with specific political intent – to promote the importance of studying and valuing peace as greatly as we have always done war, conflict and disruption. It also uses dance, music and shadowplay to carry us through the decades of Rena’s life, through schooling to a career in archaeology and marriage and motherhood and a frustrating return to Crete as she considers who she was, who she might have been, and whom she has become.
Identity is one of the many themes of the play – Rena is Jewish. She is female. She is Greek. She is, of course, as all people are, constructed and informed by those cultural influences, but she is not unchangeably defined by them – we contradict ourselves, we contain multitudes. She is informed, too, by her past and by those she has lost, and by myth and legend – in one of the play’s most telling scenes while her classmates see in Antigone the usual virtues of honour and truth and the like, Rena finds rage at the incomprehensibility of arbitrary power and inhumanity.
To achieve all this in a gripping way in a series of short, sharply written scenes and with a cast of just four (Leonie Hill and Harry Lukakis, like Noah Young, play many roles) is a substantial achievement, an ambitious exploration of identity.
Does the show achieve its full ambition? Nearly – but the link with the Mintoaur, for example, isn’t wholly clear even if it allows for excellent visuals in the shadowplay, and the pacing is a little stately and unvaried. But, back to Browning, ambition unachieved is far more worthwhile than a show that does nothing in particular but does it very well.
NMT Automatics, Chromolume and the Ancient Peace Studies Network present:
Long After The Labyrinth by Jonathan Young at Upstairs at the Gatehouse, 21 October to 8 November 2026
Box Office: https://www.upstairsatthegatehouse.com
Cast
Genevieve Dunne | Rena
Leonie Hill | Multi-role
Harry Lukakis | Multi-role
Noah Young | Multi-role
Creative Team
Jonathan D’Young | Writer
Ramon Ayres | Director
Mairin O’Hagan | Dramaturg
Alice König | Co-producer
Josephine Tremelling | Lighting Designer
David Hermann Fox | Composition and Sound Designer
Mel Fritz-Liu | Stage Manager
Simon Jackson | Assistant Lighting Designer
Peixuan Gu | Production Assistant
Kady Finnegan | Production Intern
Inigo Woodham-Smith | Photography
David Weir writes The Westminster Mysteries novel series, including The Honourable Member for Murder and Motion for Murder. Plays include Confessional (Oran Mor, Glasgow), Murdering the Truth (Greenwich Theatre, London) and Better Together (Jack Studio, Brockley, London).
