REVIEW: Vera; Or, The Nihilists by Oscar Wilde at Jack Studio Theatre 16 – 27 September 2025

‘A lost jewel; catch it while you can.’ ★★★★

There’s history being made at Brockley Jack Studio in South East London. Oscar Wilde’s first play: Vera; Or, The Nihilists, originally performed in New York in 1883 is now on. It took him three years to write and on opening night, was heckled and jeered at, a blistering and resounding failed production that closed early. So traumatised was Wilde by this experience, that when tried for sodomy at the Old Bailey, he swore under oath that Lady Windermere’s Fan was his first play. It seems that Vera was Wilde’s dirtiest of secrets.

This Wildean rarity, unloved and unclaimed, now has new life breathed into it by Cecelia Thoden van Velzen, a theatre maker and director from the Netherlands who felt this play had been neither understood nor appreciated at the time. Then, the director insisted it be a light-hearted exploration of Tsarist Russia and a group of assassins (The Nihilists) lead by their strong female leader, Vera. Despite the fact, that Wilde had written SERIOUS all over the text, it was decided, much to Wilde’s chagrin, that comedy would trump tragedy.

Realised by a committed ensemble of talented performers, this is eighty-five minutes of revolutionary fervour, a paranoid leader and forbidden love. Set at a time when the Russian people were starving, supressed, and subjugated and any transgressors carted off to salt mines, the landscape and scope of the play is wildly ambitious, perhaps the mark of many first plays. Wilde had read of The Nihilists in newspapers and was fascinated by this band of Slavic brigands who believed “assassination is a method of social reform.” In 1881, two years before the play was first performed, The Nihilists succeeded in killing Tzar Alexander II with a nitro-glycerine bomb.

Minimal, understated, and atmospheric, the play’s production makes good use of dry ice and lanterns. A spare musical composition also by director, Thoden Van Thelzen, effectively casts audiences back over two hundred years to a time of cloistered garrets, pointed spires and conspiratorial, shadowy gatherings. Protagonist, Vera is driven to join The Nihilists by the imprisonment of her brother and becomes a strong, fervent leader of this group that plot to murder the Tsar. One of the group, a man with “soft white hands” may be a traitor.

Played by George Airey (Dexter Fletcher look alike) he is drawn to the strong, sure footed, quietly spoken Vera Sabouroff, beautifully channelled by Natasha Culzac, a woman unafraid to wield dagger or gun to defeat her enemies. When the soft handed man is revealed as the Royal Prince and heir to the throne, Vera is conflicted between her love for her country and her feelings for this blue-blooded man, who offers her “the world as a footstool.”

The ensemble performances are strong. A special mention to Jonathan Hansler who plays paranoid and jumpy Tsar Ivan, untrusting of everyone after so many attempts on his life and who may be in the middle of a nervous breakdown.

Some of the play does feel a little lumpy, unwieldy, and slow in places. The use of voice over feels unnecessary, especially in the prologue when everyone is compelled to remain seated for a short lesson on Oscar Wilde. This contextual information could easily be printed somewhere. But there is also much to admire. It’s intoxicating to hear the words of Oscar Wilde, resounding so clearly and movingly, in an intimate space like Brockley Jack. The packed venue showed that Wildeans will travel from far and wide for such a rare sighting.

Despite the political landscape and theme of the play, we hear Wilde’s voice in his bon mots and camp put downs:  “Indifference is the revenge life takes on mediocrity” and “what a mistake it is to be sincere” and they are a delight. Several of Greensleeves, the company who got this off the ground, met at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. They’ve done a great job in polishing this lost jewel and putting out into the world as Wilde intended. Last night, there were no jeers, only cheers.

Vera; Or, The Nihilists at Jack Studio Theatre 16 – 27 September 2025

The First London Revival of Oscar Wilde’s first play, Adapted by Cecelia Thoden van Velzen

Jack Studio Theatre

16 – 27 September 2025

BOX OFFICE: https://brockleyjack.co.uk/jackstudio-entry/vera-or-the-nihilists/

Photo credit: Henry Roberts.

Cast:

Natasha Culzac as Vera Sabouroff

George Airey as Alexis Ivanacievitch

Kat Kim as Prime Minister Maraloffski

Jonathan Hansler as Peter Sabouroff & Czar Ivan

Jo Idris-Roberts as President of the Nihilists & Baron Raff

Finn Samuels as Michael & Count Rouvaloff

Catherine Allison as Kotemkin

Directed and reconceptualised by Cecilia Thoden van Velzen

Set Designer and Lighting Designer: Ruth Varela

Costume Designer: Anastasiia Glazova

Costume Assistants: Sofia Kuzmina and Vladimir Buriakov

Sound Design: Cecilia Thoden van Velzen

Assistant Director and Fight Director: Matthew Schwarz

Lighting Technician: Ed Tuke

Producer: Stephen Leach

Associate Producers: Natasha Culzac and Cecilia Thoden van Velzen

Presented by Third Thing Productions