I Can See the Sun – Etcetera Theatre, London

Writer and Director: Tania Khan

 I Can See the Sun is an ambitious piece by newcomer Tania Khan, developed in conjunction with ArcolaLAB. It is very much work-in-progress: it will be interesting to see how it shapes up.

Khan presents the play as allegorical, the dark wood of its setting explicitly referencing Dante’s at the beginning of The Divine Comedy. Just as Dante describes finding himself lost, here mother Lucy and daughter Grace have also missed their way. There’s a pleasing mundanity about having taken a wrong turn after shopping in IKEA, and there are other absurdist moments in the play. But for the most part, Khan wants to make a serious exploration of what seems an unbridgeable gap between the generations.

Emily Mytton is good as Lucy, embittered by unnamed disappointment. Does the name Lucy signify light, or at least the promise of light, or is she in some way Lucifer? We learn little of her circumstances, other than that she brought up Grace alone. But she is meant to represent a spirit hardened by failure.

Grace, too, suffers from a history of pain, but the script dwells rather too long on her anger and resentment. We get little context (how old is she? What does her life consist of?), but she is bitter about being made to feel unloved and unlistened to. Joanie Diamond is expressive in the part and later sings beautifully.

There’s some overworked exposition sketching in the outline of Dante’s cosmic vision. Thereafter, other than passing references to a couple of the cardinal sins, this part of the allegory tends to fade out. Khan introduces a third character – a young man, Noah (Patrick Cunningham) who, innocently hiking in the woods, is mistaken for a masked intruder. There is a farcical scene in which the two women beat him up and bind him with his shoelaces. But he is not what he seems. Cunningham portrays Noah as thoroughly likeable, teaching the women to construct a woodland shelter. But one can’t help but wonder about the gender politics here. Does it really take a man to rescue the women? The idea that he is, perhaps, the poet Virgil is briefly floated but remains undeveloped.

Under her direction, Khan brings off some effective scenes. But there are also overlong moments of stillness that feel empty rather than potent. Video designer, Jessica Brauner, deserves special mention for her creation of a truly evocative wood with some stunning effects – both the driving rain and the later coming of dawn sunshine.

Reviewed on 17 December 2025