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Theatre without words: a foreign producer's reflection

Richard Beck Richard Beck
6 Nov 2025

Voila! Theatre Festival, London’s panlingual festival that celebrates emerging artists from different backgrounds and cultures, is now well under way and runs across eight London venues until 23 November.

Live performance connects us not through perfect comprehension, but through shared humanity

As the festival's co-director, we invited Fae Fichtner for her perspective.

My parents often recount the story of me as a child, dissolving into tears in the middle of a bustling Ibiza market, crying that it was unfair I couldn’t understand the people around me. I must have been four or five years old; it was my first time outside Germany. We’d been there for a few days, and my parents were impressed by how quickly I picked up bits of Spanish. But I was devastated by what I didn’t know and wanted to understand everything.

Today, I speak several languages to varying degrees of fluency. The hunger to learn more hasn’t gone away. What I’ve given up on is the idea of perfect comprehension. Even in English or German, there are still moments when a regional accent or an unfamiliar word leaves me guessing. Yet I go to the theatre often and travel widely. Despite language barriers, I’ve come to believe that it’s empathy, not accuracy, that allows me to truly understand.

As an independent producer specialising in contemporary circus and the co-artistic director of the Voila! Theatre Festival, I’ve worked on many shows that use either multiple languages or none at all. I’ve never worried that audiences wouldn’t follow, not because I expect them to know every word, but because we tell our stories with more than just language.

One challenge I face is audience development. There’s a loyal community for multilingual and contemporary circus work, people who delight in movement and layered meaning, who long to see themselves and their languages represented on stage. But these shows rarely attract a wider British audience. As a result, the auditorium is never empty, but we struggle to fill the room for several nights in a row. In a world dominated by literal communication, social media, and constant stimulation, we’ve forgotten how to sit with something we can’t immediately translate. People often hesitate to buy tickets, and I wonder why. I know our stories matter. But they can’t be paused, googled, or consumed passively. And I understand many audiences want an easy night out, not a challenge.

It takes time to learn how to watch a show without spoken dialogue, or performed in another language. I know this from experience. Growing up as a German teenager in the ’90s and 2000s, I learned most of my English by watching undubbed TV shows. It was often frustrating, but I discovered I could follow stories without understanding every word.

That skill taught me to watch and listen at once, to piece together meaning from tone, gesture, and emotion alike. I also learned the value of asking for clarification. No one ever refused or made me feel awkward. I’ve lived in the UK for seven years and only recently realised that a “fancy dress party” is a costume party. I’d never questioned it, I understood “fancy” and “party”, but subtext matters just as much as literal meaning, or sometimes not at all.

London is a beautiful hub of people from all over the world, some newly arrived, some born here, some balancing multiple heritages. Art, to me, is a kind of translation, a way to express emotions that language alone can’t contain. Words help, but they aren’t the only way we make sense of each other. If you’ve ever been moved by a painting, you can understand a show in any language, or none. You’ll still feel its meaning. That’s why I believe we should get used to not understanding everything. Because in those moments of uncertainty, something deeper comes to life: empathy, curiosity, imagination. Empathy is what draws us to theatre. Live performance connects us not through perfect comprehension, but through shared humanity. Movement can express love, despair, and joy as powerfully as any poem.

My younger self might still be disappointed not to understand everything. But today I know that what makes me connect to the world is not my vocabulary, it’s my capacity for empathy. Not understanding is what keeps me watching, listening, and learning. It’s what makes connection possible. And that’s something worth getting used to.

Full information about Voila! Theatre Festival can be found at:

https://voilafestival.co.uk/

Richard Beck

Richard Beck

A graduate in theology and education, Richard acted and contributed to dance, drama and music productions throughout his teaching career. He joined Broadway Baby in 2014 and is now our Editor-in-Chief. He usually disappears to warmer climes for the winter to pursue his passion for travel.

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