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REVIEW | Echo, King's Head Theatre - London
- Harry Brogan
- Jul 25
- 2 min read
AD | Tickets gifted in exchange of an honest review
Susan Eve Haar’s Echo, now playing at the King’s Head Theatre, is a bold but baffling two-hander that never quite finds its footing. With a shifting tone and muddled themes, it attempts to explore identity, intimacy, and power - but ends up feeling more confused than compelling.
Set in a remote B&B in upstate New York, the play unfolds in two parts: first, a couple marks their 10th anniversary; twenty years later, another couple revisit the same location to scatter ashes. What begins as a gritty 70s-style psychodrama veers abruptly into speculative sci-fi with the introduction of cloning. The result is a genre mash-up that never feels cohesive, and its myriad of themes remain undeveloped. Tonal lurches - from erotic thriller to psychological study to futuristic allegory - leave the piece feeling thematically scattered and narratively uncertain.
The central relationship in Echo is intense and emotionally volatile, but rarely convincing. The woman’s (character She played by Amara Okereke) erratic behaviour and flashes of aggression are tied to her grief over infertility, but the script offers little depth to this motivation. Instead, she’s left to linger in self-pity, making her actions feel unmoored rather than emotionally affecting. Meanwhile, her male partner (character He played by Kyle Rowe) oscillates between neediness and control, with a pathological jealousy that feels arbitrary rather than psychologically layered. As a result, prolonged scenes of roleplay and coercive intimacy, presented as erotic, become repetitive and lacked dramatic impact, making their relationship feel more like a contrived plot device than authentic human connection.
Peiyao Wang's design choices do little to elevate the production. The minimal set and understated lighting fail to support the heightened elements of the script. A brief projection of constellations and aurora borealis arrives out of nowhere, clashing with the otherwise naturalistic aesthetic. Costume choices - skimpily suggestive - feel more gratuitous than thematically necessary, and at times leaving the actress appearing visibly uncomfortable.
To their credit, both Amara Okereke and Kyle Rowe deliver sincere, committed performances. There are flashes of chemistry, particularly in the quieter moments, but their efforts are hampered by the script’s shortcomings. The script offers little consistency or emotional arc for them to work with and dialogue is often overwrought and circular, leaning heavily on melodrama without the payoff of emotional insight.
Echo is ambitious in scope and might have offered a provocative meditation on desire, intimacy, and individuality with more focused storytelling, but as it stands, it’s a disjointed and perplexing watch that ultimately fails to resonate.
★★
ECHO play's at the King's Head Theatre until 17th of August.
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