This is Not About Me

Imagine if you could rewrite the details of a relationship to suit the version of events you wish had happened. In a way, we all do this, piecing together memories into whatever form we can cope with. Hannah Caplin’s meta-play This Is Not About Me digs into this idea, as she toys with reality while recounting a complicated friendship in real time.

It’s a strikingly modern portrayal of friendship. Grace, played with peppy volatility by Amaia Naima Aguinaga, is an erratic addict, while Eli, brought to life by Francis Nunnery, is a bumbling but deeply likable soft boy. They can’t stop sleeping together, even though every encounter is inevitably followed by months of silence. It’s funny and has equally modern references; at one point, Eli refers to Grace as a ‘sexy letterboxed’, after he unexpectedly gets hard from her film knowledge.

We follow their story through more traditional “fly on the wall” snapshots of their time together, interwoven with more experimental, self-referential scenes in which Grace openly constructs (and reconstructs) the narrative. This creative meddling increasingly irritates the “real” Eli, we never find out his real name, but we see him trapped within her web of events, brought to life in wool by set designer Douglas Clarke-wood, angry about how he’s being portrayed.

Alongside this tapestry, there is a flurry of multi-media devices to expand on these themes, from screens showing what the characters are actually thinking, to the most obvious of the lot: the use of puppets. Although a pretty heavy-handed metaphor, they do add to the experience; in the sex scenes, giant puppet mouths lip-syncing to absurd sexual preferences provide perfect physical punchlines.

The ambition of it all sometimes leads to confusion, but even in the most chaotic moments, the strength of the characters continues to shine. We leave reflecting on the impact of art on its muse, questioning who, if anyone, can claim ownership over the “truth” in artistic expression. After all, if someone feels misrepresented, in Hannah’s words, through Grace, surely they “should write their own play about it”.