No Apologies

Kurt Cobain was trans, to begin with. At least, that is the imaginative premise of Emma Frankland's No Apologies. Drawing on Nirvana’s celebrated 1993 MTV Unplugged performance, Frankland takes up the acoustic guitar against a backdrop of MTV footage and a candlelit, red-washed set, part Gothic dinner party, part shrine. The starting point is her own adolescence when at fourteen, she looked to Cobain for inspiration, imagining what it might have meant to have such a prominent trans role model. The starting point is her own adolescence, when at fourteen, she looked to Cobain for inspiration, imagining what a childhood might have meant to have such a prominent trans role model.

But the concert barely gets underway before Frankland moves into an extended monologue on trans rights. The argument is heartfelt, though pressed insistently and leaves little room for the us to make our own connections. Her shifts between microphone and unamplified asides never quite settle, while the guitar playing fades miming as Cobain's recording takes over and the live performance starts to hide behind the music it has summoned.

The production has a firey confidence in its visual language. And its ability to build an atmosphere is drawn out towards the end of the piece. During a candlelit vigil, wax runs down Frankland's back before she emerges in a dress; above her, a swinging chandelier makes the stage feel at once like a séance, a funeral and a shrine. The soundtrack is carefully assembled and well timed, while the visual effects are often stunning.

What we are less sure of is how fully this visual spectacle serves the argument beneath it. The production sets out to have spectacle and argument married, but the latter ends up rather buried, making a curious echo of Cobain's refrain.

No Apologies by Marlborough Productions. Credit Marlborough Productions.