There’s something about walking into an intimate theatrical space that always feels quietly like you’re about to be let in on something fragile, raw and authentic. The Sound of Absence doesn’t waste that intimacy, in-fact it fully leans into it.
The stage is sparse, a quick head count and I notice around 30 audience members seated in two rows opposite each other. A space inbetween, a piano. A chair. Light that feels almost tidal in its rhythm. No big distraction, just space, and into that space steps Lenore, played by Yanina Hope, with a kind of emotional steadiness that makes you realise you’re about to be trusted with something very real. Lenore has received a phone call that her father is very poorly in intensive care. She dashes to be by his side only for it to be too late. Her world falls apart, her emotions full of rage, desire, sadness, longing for the relationship they didn’t have and oft regret. Lenore then lets us, the audience, accompany her on a journey through time, beautifully and hauntingly alongside composer and pianist Vladyslav Kuznetsov who plays the piano so eloquently. Never in your face but still seamlessly and effortlessly part of the action.
The Sound of Absence is inspired by writer and performer Hope’s relationship with her father and it explores the complexities of father-daughter connections and how one’s parental choices can affect the rest of the lives of our children. With live piano, spoken word, movement, this immersive production transforms the space into a bubble of emotions where the audience is actively invited to explore their own journey with grief and reconciliation. This isn’t a play that performs grief in capital letters. It traces it in pencil, carefully and patiently. There are pauses that stretch not awkwardly, but honestly, and you really start to notice your own rhythm, how you are being effected by what you are witnessing in front of you. The weight of a memory, the way absence can feel louder than any argument ever could.
The live piano (played with restraint and sensitivity) doesn’t underscore the story, it quietly breathes alongside it. Sometimes it feels like the instrument is speaking what the character in front of us can’t quite say. Sometimes it interrupts. Sometimes it comforts. The relationship between voice and music is one of the most affecting elements of the evening; it never tips into sentimentality, which feels like a gentle hand hold in a piece about loss. What lingers most is the refusal to tidy things up. There’s no grand catharsis. No neatly tied emotional bow. Instead, the piece allows discomfort to exist. It lets you sit in the in-between, where absence now echoes. Hope plays the character with full depth and realism, her own authentic inner feelings being laid out right in front of us. I believe her. Kuznetsov plays a very important part of this production and I was often flitting back and forth to watching him perform - a truly talented piano player - to Hopes emotion filled scenes. By the end, the audience feels softer. Quieter. Like we’ve all collectively agreed to lower our voices on the way out. The Sound of Absence doesn’t try to overwhelm you. It asks you to listen, not just to the stage, but to yourself. And that’s a braver theatrical choice than any big set or dramatic crescendo.
I was delighted to stay behind for the Q&A where I leant so much more about the production. Kuznetsov initially wrote in response to the script. It didn’t land. It felt like background. The shift came when the team stopped following the words and began mapping the emotional stages of grief instead. The piano became a parallel voice, not accompaniment. The body tells a different truth to the text. The movement director, Anna Korzik also trained as an architect, and approached movement as structure. Denial in language might not appear as denial in the body. Rage might live in stillness. At times Hope follows the music rather than the words. That layering gives the production its emotional depth; nothing is illustrative, everything is in dialogue. Personal grief requires craft, not exposure. When asked how the team protected themselves while working so closely with autobiographical material, the conversation deepened. Director Ivanka Polchenko really highlighting that yes old wounds were tapped into, but their self-care was good. Everyone looked after each other working with such an emotive theme. Hope described the need to “step out” of her own story before stepping back in as a character. Craft became containment. What we see onstage isn’t raw re-enactment, it’s shaped experience.
Rage has rhythm. The inclusion of Dylan Thomas’s ‘Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night’ gave permission for emotional extremity. Grief isn’t only quiet or internal; it can be forceful, almost percussive. Structuring the music around emotional stages rather than dialogue allowed those surges to exist without apology. Finally, the Q&A highlighted absence is bigger than one relationship. When the discussion opened to whether the story extended beyond the father-daughter dynamic, the answer was clear. Absence could be a lover, a sibling, a friend. The universality lies there. The ending remains open, not unresolved, but deliberately so. The aim is not neat closure, but release.
The Sound of Absence is playing at The Omnibus Theatre, Clapham until 28th February. https://www.omnibus-
Reviewer - Mary Fogg
On - 25th February 2026
