The Cathedral – Vandens Karta Ensemble / VAULT Festival, London

An unexpected work from all-migrant Vandens Karta Ensemble, The Cathedral delves into the deepest corners of misogyny, religion and female shame and empowerment.

The Cathedral

Two women pray and sing religious songs. A femme de joie cleans a church somewhere near Marseille. A lost tourist gives up her search for Michelangelo and instead attempts… what exactly? To pray? To connect? The Cathedral, by all-migrant Vandens Karta Ensemble brings these elements together in a one-hour show at VAULT Festival.

The Cathedral is fringe theatre in the truest sense: fully committed, completely unexpected and pretty avant-garde. In the space of an hour I felt compassion, I felt uncomfortable, I laughed, my jaw dropped… A full gamut of emotions. It was so unexpected that I had to sleep on it to understand what I saw, to process the things that I knew intuitively went together somehow, and comprehend the whole.

Vandens Karta Ensemble state that The Cathedral “celebrates women at their most vulnerable and most compelling”. The VAULT Festival website says “movement, clowning, hymns and karaoke collide in this ode to the joys and traumas of womanhood.” These are both true. The first clue the audience has is the set, a knitted and crocheted stained glass window. This is a work about religion and women(‘s work). The first two characters, the two who pray and sing throughout the play (Margherita Deri and Virginia Ruspini), are easy to comprehend within this setting. They, too, will explore sexuality and desire before the hour is up, but that comes a little later.

Lily Sinko’s cheerfully tragic prostitute is next, stumbling in laden with cleaning supplies. Her tales of violence and survival are harrowing, that her name is Magdalena is no coincidence. Lastly, I was confused at first by Helene Smed Madsen’s lost tourist. This story told through mime seemed incongruous to begin with. But Smed Madsen’s absolute commitment to it, and its physical humour, is compelling. Hard to look away from.

How Does It Knit Together?

The thing for me is that I needed to sleep on it to see how it knitted together (pun intended). There is something very promising in this exploration of religion and female shame and power. But also something that is, by design or accident, a little inaccessible. I do like to be challenged by what I see on stage so this was not an issue for me, but potential audience members should definitely go into The Cathedral with an open mind.

As I’ve mentioned, the commitment was what made the difference. Sinko, who played Magdalena in a separate work earlier in VAULT Festival, is disarmingly charming. She’s like an archetype I can’t quite put my finger on. The character who is so completely themselves they become the catalyst for a revolution (or in this case religious unorthodoxy). Smed Madsen is the tourist taken to extremes: unfamiliar with the simplest of actions and unable to conform. And Deri and Ruspini are impressively in sync, eyes staring as they go through the motions of prayers and devotional song. They are all in their own worlds, but they are utterly there.

Director Ami Okumura Jones (who we last saw in My Neighbour Totoro at the Barbican) gives space to these performances. The production takes us out of the reality of being at VAULT, in Waterloo, in London, watching a play, and into an alternative, disorienting space. I appreciated it even when I didn’t understand it, and look forward to seeing more boundary-pushing work from Vandens Karta Ensemble in future.

It’s the last week for VAULT Festival 2023/in its current home, and the last week for the fundraising campaign for the festival’s future. This is a good pick for those who want to take advantage of VAULT’s contribution to the London cultural landscape, and see something truly creative and challenging.

Salterton Arts Review’s rating: 3.5/5

The Cathedral on until 17 March 2023