An interview with the cast of Image of an Unknown Young Woman

02/01/2025

Sarah Gent sits down with the cast of Image of an Unknown Young Woman to discuss their creative process

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Image by Lisa Birchall

By Sarah Gent

I sat down with some of the cast of Image of an Unknown Young Woman, to discuss their creative process before their third year, main-stage, performance in December, as part of the Theatre BA here at the university.

“A shocking video goes viral, a revolution sparks. People are dying, paranoia is growing.” Elinor Cook’s play is described as “hard hitting, exploring the complexities of revolution”. But how have the York students added their own flare to the production?

Emilia Stevens (Yasmin), Dylan Day (A), Lee Barnes (B) and Eva Ulrich-Oltean (C), spoke with much excitement and enthusiasm about their production, and judging by their rave reviews rightly so, describing it as “energetic but cruel”. Directors Immy Mears and Cerelia Chamberlain tackled the heavy topics (including death, violence and abuse) by mixing together worlds of realism and abstract to “build to darkness, it gets quite dark and there aren’t really any light moments anymore”.

Image of an Unknown Young Woman follows the revolution that occurs after a video of a girl wearing a yellow dress who gets shot spreads around the internet. People begin to protest whilst others are facing intense consequences. Throughout this, Yasmin is attempting to locate her missing mother, frustrated by the lack of sympathy from her peers who seem to only care about this unknown woman.

Over the past few months, you may have noticed an unusual amount of yellow balloons making their way across campus. This wasn’t just a clever marketing strategy, but a huge symbol in the show. Yellow was used to match the dress of the girl who gets shot. I asked the actors about this choice, they explained “it makes it a bit eerie because balloons are supposed to be happy, like fairgrounds, childlike, but it’s got a much darker meaning to it.” Another described it as “symbolism, making a spectacle of the girl who was shot and she doesn’t even know it”.

A huge part of any production is Research and Development (R&D). Given that this is such an abstract play with endless possibilities of interpretation, many pivotal decisions were made in this process. A big question I had about their adaptation was whether it was based on real events. The directors made the decision to separate it from all current affairs and specific locations, letting the audience make their own decisions. The beauty, it seems, of this play is that no matter when or where it is being performed, it could be linked to anything.

Eva, Dylan and Lee play unnamed characters, A, B and C, making up the chorus, multi-rolling, returning as different people each time they appear. The actors explained how much these characters were developed during the R&D process into mischievous, mysterious beings who ignore Yasmin. They watch the action in the same way that  the audience does, they can’t alter the events but do seem to play big parts in them, symbolising different events, puppeteering the girl in the yellow dress and metaphorically torturing another character. The actors described how they approached the scenes as if they were playing a game. They wanted to “embody what became of the images of the young woman”.

Emilia described her character Yasmin as “much more grounded in reality”, her only goal to find out where on earth her mother is, getting shot down again and again. “Life is pretty cruel to her”.

I asked the cast what their favourite moment of the play was. Two moments stood out to them, the first being Yasmin bringing real fire on stage, using a wooden stick and fire paste to control it, creating a strong symbol of protest. The second image which the cast agreed they would hope the audience enjoyed was the final scene, Yasmin wears the yellow dress and steps out into a crowd of protesters before a blackout, leaving the audience to decide whether she was seized by the authorities or if there was a more hopeful ending.

A moment which audience members highlighted as most symbolic and outstanding was when Yasmin meets the unknown young woman towards the end of the show. The chorus puppeteers a mannequin dressed in yellow, a wonderful choice to keep the woman’s identity a mystery.

Their lengthy process most definitely paid off because I have heard nothing but  great reviews about the production. Audience members described it as “a must see… exhibiting the true power of theatre” and some even called it the best piece of theatre they had ever seen.