Review: Lacrima by Caroline Guiela Nguyen 2026 Sydney Festival

In the last few years, mainstream discourse has criticised the production of fast fashion, which has cast moral judgment on those who purchase such goods. The implicit blame falls on consumers of lower socio-economic classes who may rely on fast-fashion due to its affordability. 

But where does high fashion fall within this? How much do we truly know about the ‘ethical’ practices of haute couture?  Do those who can afford such luxury goods have hands as pristine as the dresses they buy?

Caroline Guiela Nguyen’s Lacrima explores this through a parallel narrative, tracing the story behind the making of the Princess of England’s wedding dress. This multilingual production, performed in French, English and Tamil, captures the intersection of dominance across different spaces and structures.

When the Princess of England announces her engagement, Maison Beliana, a Parisian haute couture fashion house, wins the bid for its commission. The making of the dress is divided into three parts: its veil in Alençon, its dress in Paris and its train in Mumbai.

Whilst the dressmaking is divided, the story is not, as Nguyen interweaves both the commercial and personal costs of vanity and beautification. The story explores how much blood, sweat and tears dye the making of haute couture.

The cast is strong and effortlessly responds to each other’s cues and rhythms moving across the stage, both in performance and in transforming the set, with a choreographed fluidity. Maud Le Grevellec, who plays Marion, highlights the martyrdom of being a mother, wife and head of the atelier in a poetic suffering which culminates in a devastating outcome.

Dan Artus, who plays Julius Marion’s husband, also craftily transitions from a seemingly neglected and inadequate husband to a man with complete dominance and violent control over his wife, depicting the nature of domestic violence and abuse.

A special mention must also be made for Aurore Medjeber, whose understated control and restraint powerfully encapsulate the bittersweet idea of legacy and loss.

The production is one of melodrama, and both sound and music technicians Antoine Richard, Jean-Baptiste Cognet and Teddy Gauliat-Pitois meet that expectation. Whilst the intensity and looming sense of dread feel at times draining, this somatic experience wonderfully culminates in the final scenes where the true experience of making a dress and wearing a dress is both felt and revealed.

Alice Duchange’s set design is spectacular. The set’s seamless movement and centring of different desks and tables to establish shifts in location is effortlessly done without distracting from the video projections of Jérémie Scheidle.

However, the set lives up to its description – it is purely a spectacle. Nguyen’s production heavily relies on Scheidle’s poetic videography to advance the story. Without the set, the performance could stand on its own as a fascinating experimental film, begging the question of the line between theatre and film when projections are so heavily relied upon.

The paradox of this film is that, in isolation, each part of the production is an elegant thread of expertise and passion. From Duchange’s set designs and the grandeur of Benjamin Moreau’s costumes and the rapport of the cast, each element stands as an elegant thread of expertise and passion.

However, woven together, much like the Princess of England’s veil, the work becomes too heavy and overwhelms the audience in a competition between each component in almost every scene.

Nguyen’s script is clearly researched, but it goes into excessive detail about the dressmaking that becomes borderline verbose in what is already a very long, three-hour production. The commentary on the imbalance of power between the global North and South is didactic and reduces the power of more poignant scenes.

Abdul’s role as the embroidery maker in Mumbai plays a meta-role by remaining primarily in the background of the performance, much like dressmaking, creating more tension when the viewer sees Abdul on the video projections for his mandated eye appointment. However, long and overzealous dialogue about the idea of Western ethics detracts from such meaningful direction.

By incorporating so many storylines, some of Nguyen’s ideas lose their nuance. The storyline of the genetic disease seems out of place and competes with a young lacemaker’s own complicated history and her relationship to lace. These storylines then attempt to work alongside those set in Mumbai and Paris, but appear much less significant and relevant.

Lacrima is a work of striking ambition and undeniable craft, one that is as invested in spectacle as it is in moral interrogation. In striving to say everything, Lacrima risks obscuring its most powerful insights, which emerge most forcefully in moments of restraint, silence, and embodied labour.

What lingers is not the grandeur of the Princess’s dress, but the weight of the hands that made it—strained, unseen, and ultimately burdened by a beauty too heavy to wear.

Lacrima is presented by Caroline Guiela Nguyen & Théâtre National de Strasbourg. It runs to 25 January at Rosyln Packer Theatre as part of Sydney Festival. 22 Hickson Rd, Walsh Bay NSW 2000.

It then runs 6 – 10 February as part of Perth Festival.

Tickets Sydney: https://www.sydneyfestival.org.au/events/lacrima

Tickets Perth: https://www.perthfestival.com.au/program/season-2026/lacrima

Socials: https://www.instagram.com/sydney_festival/ and https://www.instagram.com/caroline_guiela_nguyen/

Photo credits: Wendell Teodoro