Review by Giada
Stars is pure joy.
It feels like stepping into a collective moment of celebration - an affirmation of the many forms pleasure and desire can take. In a world constantly telling you how to feel, what to like, and who to be, this play offers the powerful reassurance that whoever you are, whatever you desire, it’s valid.
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| Photo by Sanaa Abstrakt |
This Afro-futurist space odyssey takes the form of a coming-of-age story of an elderly woman. Mrs (Debra Michaels), having fulfilled the roles of mother and wife, now embarks on a new quest: to join the Spexit mission in search of her long-lost orgasm. As we follow her attempt to fill out the application, we get an intimate glimpse into her life and the quiet grief of a past filled with compromise. She wrestles with the desires she once suppressed out of fear, duty, and societal expectations.
Her relationships with Myriam and Maxi become catalysts for change. Their curiosity, openness, and non-judgmental attitudes help Mrs re-evaluate her past choices and awaken parts of herself she had long silenced. Witnessing her reclaim her pleasure and identity with pride is a moving moment.
The complex, multi-layered text (winner of ‘best new play’ at the Offies 2024) thoughtfully unpacks the politics of pleasure, exploring how gender norms have shaped our relationship to sexual desire and pleasure through social constructs of shame and control. The play asks: what happens when pleasure is reclaimed? How do trauma survivors find their way back to bodily joy? It is a reminder that sexual exploration is, for many, an act of resistance.
For Mrs, it took nearly a lifetime. She was married to her rapist and experienced only one orgasm, shared with a woman. Maxi, her intersex friend, never saw her “maxi clit” as a problem thanks to a mother who refused to subject her to surgery. Young Myriam, Mrs’s neighbour, vanishes after confiding that she has undergone FGM. These stories are raw and real, and yet the play finds ways to tell them that are tender, powerful, and filled with beauty.
To create emotional distance from the subject matter, writer Mojisola Adebayo frames this intersectional feminist exploration through the lens of African mythology and astronomy. Inspired by the Dogon people of Mali, the play references Nommo, the androgynous amphibian space travellers from Sirius B. This mythology is woven into the very fabric of the story, connecting cosmic exploration with personal liberation. It’s Myriam who shares the tale of Nommo, dreaming and sketching the vastness of space and the stars to which she yearns to return. The Illustrations by Candice Purwin, transformed into mesmerising animations, enrich the sensory experience. Debo Adebayo’s soundscape, essentially a concept album for the stage, wraps the whole production in music that resonates deeply. The play is multidisciplinary, immersive, and ritualistic. On press night, it began with a stunning choir performance in the foyer, a spiritual opening to a night that ends with the theatre turned into a club until 2 a.m.
Stars is deeply researched, and unapologetically celebratory. It’s dedicated to trauma survivors and is, at its core, a tribute to pleasure, desire, and the beauty of bodies.
And you know what? I think I’ve got my own space journey to embark on now.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Stars runs at Brixton House until 28th June 2025. Tickets are available from https://brixtonhouse.co.uk/shows/stars/
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