Shedwood – Camden Fringe / Barons Court Theatre, London

Rooted in Han Kang’s The Vegetarian, Shedwood is a short, striking piece of physical theatre that explores transformation in raw, bodily terms.

Shedwood

I found myself thinking about some very eclectic comparisons as I watched Shedwood, a new work written and directed by Yuchen Zhou, with set and costume designed with Kailin Xu, who also produces. I saw the work at Barons Court Theatre as part of Camden Fringe. The opening scene, in which a woman seemingly awakes and must extricate herself from a shroud of clingfilm, was the most immediate reference. By coincidence, I’d seen the Leigh Bowery! exhibition at Tate Modern immediately beforehand. Bowery once performed something similar (but inverted), wrapping his friend Trojan in clingfilm before Trojan shed and burned the second skin. That image returned forcefully here. Shedwood also begins with a body constrained and slowly escaping.

The next reference my mind threw up was stranger. As the solo dancer (Lu Deng) cut something out of herself and began freeing green growths from her nude leotard, I thought of Yeast Nation, a musical I saw once about an evolving underwater society of sentient yeast. A leap, perhaps. But not as far as it sounds. Shedwood is based on Han Kang’s 2007 novel The Vegetarian, where a woman stops eating meat and begins to imagine herself as plantlife. Suddenly the imagery made sense. The green tendrils. The act of shedding. The slow, strange release of vegetal parts from her own body. A violent dream, a rejection of flesh, a turn toward chlorophyll. It’s a bold reading, and not an easy one.

Shed, Grow, Repeat

The work’s difficulty lies in its intensity. At around 30 minutes, it’s probably the right length. Any longer and the central metaphor might begin to feel stretched. But within that span, it builds and shifts. Lu brings striking control and presence. Lishuang Yang joins briefly, adding a moment of closure that deepens the atmosphere.

The projections, by Shangyu Li, and the lighting, designed by Sheron Luo, work hard to mark out the structure. There are clear sections (dream, emergence, transformation) even if they remain ambiguous. One brief moment attempts to add subtitles, but the text flickers past too fast to read. Sound is more of a problem. The mix is harsh in places. At times, the volume overwhelms the space. That aside, there’s a strong visual rhythm throughout, thanks to the coordination between movement, light, and costume. Zhou’s design work, alongside Kailin Xu, is inventive and strange in the best way.

It’s also just exciting to see something this physical, this unlike anything else. No ironic distance. No holding back. Shedwood commits completely to its world, and that commitment makes space for the audience to lean in. I haven’t read The Vegetarian, but this interpretation doesn’t feel like an illustration of it. It’s something parallel, maybe more visceral. Not narrative, not symbolic exactly. Just raw, embodied transformation. Shed, grow, repeat.

Salterton Arts Review’s rating: 3.5/5

Shedwood was on at Barons Court Theatre as part of Camden Fringe. Check out shedwood_performance • Instagram photos and videos for any future dates.