The Popess: Instructions for Freedom review – a holy uprising in a basement
Elena Mazzon turns religious heresy into dark comedy and communion in an intimate one-woman show at The Glitch.
On a warm September evening, it’s easy to walk straight past The Glitch. Lower Marsh is busy—people queuing for the Vaults, pints sweating on outside tables. The theatre hides behind a cafe, and beneath that, down a narrow staircase, a small, dark basement room. Two semicircles of plastic chairs, low ceiling, walls of exposed brick. No stage. No mic. Just a woman in black standing in the light. And she holds us there—for an hour.
The Popess: Instructions for Freedom, written and performed by Elena Mazzon and directed by Colin Watkeys, is as unadorned as theatre gets. But that simplicity is deceptive. What unfolds is dense with ideas: spiritual rebellion, the shape of female power, the machinery of the Church, and how belief can sit somewhere between comfort and combustion.
Mazzon inhabits multiple roles in this solo performance, shifting effortlessly between characters: the searching Everywoman, her bold friend Sybille, the revered Guglielma of Bohemia, the noble nun Maifreda Pirovano, and the menacing Inquisitor. Together, these figures weave a tapestry of spiritual rebellion and female power.
The Everywoman anchors the story, her quiet determination and searching spirit guiding us through 13th-century Milan’s turbulent quest for spiritual truth. What we find is Guglielma of Bohemia, a woman worshiped by her followers as the incarnation of the Holy Spirit, and Maifreda Pirovano, a noblewoman from the powerful Visconti family who chose to become a nun within the order of the Humiliate. Before her death, Guglielma appointed Maifreda as her “Popess” to lead this radical, female-led Church. It’s a vision of spiritual equality that provokes ecstasy among its believers—and fire from the Inquisition.
Audience participation is threaded lightly—never forced, but sincere. Mazzon asks the audience what they would die for (one answer: “the planet”—thanks, Greta), and later, what they seek in faith. The responses—“truth,” “completion,” “clarity”—are disarming in their earnestness. Interactive theatre can sometimes feel gimmicky or heavy-handed, but here it mostly lands, creating genuine moments of reflection without pressure. That said, at times the invitations to chant in Latin or read aloud confessions risk breaking the spell, reminding you of the constructed nature of the performance. Still, Mazzon manages the room with warmth and a deft touch, holding the balance between ritual and theatre with care.
At its heart, the show is a dark comedy wrestling with who gets to define truth. Yet it feels gentler than that suggests—more communion than confrontation. The real blaze comes late, when the Inquisitor returns, draped in a heavy cloak, his belly round and prominent—a gluttonous embodiment of power structures’ insatiable appetite for control. He delivers his grim decree: the female holy lineage must be erased. Guglielma’s bones are disinterred and burned; Maifreda is condemned to the stake. Their names are wiped from history, their faith reduced to dust.
“The Popess” asks big, thorny questions: What is faith? Is it comfort, conviction, rebellion? What are we prepared to die for — or live for? But it doesn’t always go deep enough to answer them. At times, the ideas feel more gestured at than fully explored, and the piece sits more in provocation than resolution. Still, there’s something worthwhile in the asking. As the show matures, and Mazzon continues to inhabit these voices, perhaps more layers will surface. For now, it’s a thoughtful, gently provocative work-in-progress — and a timely invitation to sit with questions most of us prefer to avoid.
Rating: ★★★★
Recommended — compelling and thoughtful, raising important questions even if some answers remain elusive.
The Glitch, Lower Marsh, London, SE1 7AE
Wednesday 3rd – Monday 8th September 2025
7pm (and 2pm matinee Sat)
Running time: 60 minutes
https://www.tickettailor.com/events/vaultcreativearts/1718463
Elena Leo is the Arts & Lifestyle Editor of Ikon London Magazine.
