Nobody Told Me, at the Theatre On The Square, is a new play by Luc Albinski, is a tribute to the noble deeds of his mother. During World War II, she fought to save lives in the Warsaw Ghetto. While this doctor-mother fights to save lives in the Warsaw Ghetto, her daughter fights to stay by her side and friends argue over faith, duty and survival. Love, betrayal, humour and horror are in the same room. Nobody Told Me is directed by Ilina Perianov from Bulgaria, and has a unique style combining post-Brechtian conventions and physical theatre to tell its story. The set is designed by Wilhelm Disbergen, with choreography by Vicky Friedman and music composed by Jeanne Zaidel-Rudoph.
Aimèe Mica Komorowsky discusses her work in the play.
In the lead-up to a new production, how do you prepare – physically, mentally and emotionally?
I prepare my body as my primary instrument. People often underestimate how physically demanding performance is – not because it’s athletic in a conventional sense, but because we ask our bodies to function in ways that everyday life does not require. We hold tension for long periods and repeat gestures night after night. Our emotion is stored in our nervous system, voice and bones. It’s almost unnatural: we sacrifice our bodies to be vessels to tell stories, because it is our passion. But in this, we push the body beyond what is commonly understood. So I stretch, strengthen, build stamina and pay close attention to health and nourishment. In terms of portraying a character, I begin shaping the physical life of the character – how she stands, where she holds weight and how she moves through space. Where does she carry her different emotions? I mould the body like clay until it no longer feels like mine. Mental preparation is the most fragile part for me. I try to reduce stress and noise, though I don’t always succeed. The real work is entering the character’s mind – understanding how she thinks, how her thoughts loop or fracture and what her internal logic is. I study her patterns, her contradictions and the way her brain protects her or betrays her. Sometimes I let myself sink so deeply into her that I try to dream as she would. One exercise I like to do is to fall asleep carrying her thoughts, her fears and her logic, just to see what surfaces. And then, just as importantly, I have to learn how to step back out again, to leave her mind and return safely to my own. This is where everything begins. I don’t only build the emotional arc of the show; I build the emotional life of the character. Back story. A life before the pages of the script. I imagine her being born, who she was as a child, what shaped her, where she learned to survive… I track her emotional shifts, her beating heart and the subtle changes that happen between scenes. What is not in the text. I colour in the details. I look for what I, as Aimèe, share with her emotionally, and where we differ. That tension between identification and distance is where the work becomes alive for me.
What is the single most influential performance you’ve ever seen – the one that made you feel: “This is what I want to do with my life!”?
I don’t think there’s just one. Many have influenced me since the beginning of my career. This industry has a way of breaking your heart over and over again. There have been many moments where I’ve felt exhausted and disillusioned, ready to walk away. And then I see a performance that tells the truth. That truth without decoration, without protection. That kind of truth reminds me why I chose this life in the first place. It’s not about inspiration; it’s about recognition. And there are many that stir and ignite me at different moments of insecurity. The most recent performance that did this for me was Kate Winslet in Lee. It reached something raw and necessary and pulled me back to myself.
What is your favourite aspect of the industry – be it specific people, parts of the production process, particular venues/locations or something else?
The process, always the process. I love what gets uncovered in the room when time, trust and curiosity are allowed to exist. The discoveries you can’t plan for. The moments that come from trying, failing, listening, and trying again. Working with other actors is at the centre of that for me. Acting lives in response, in being changed by what someone else offers. I learn constantly from the people I work with: from their instincts, their discipline and the risks they’re willing to take. When actors are generous with one another, something larger than any single performance begins to form. That shared discovery is what keeps the work alive.
What is an aspect of the industry that you feel could be improved (even if that’s only an idealistic wish)?
Besides the lack of funding and focus on the importance of theatre in everyday society, I wish the industry were less insular and less possessive. It can be small, clingy and resistant to change. I believe work thrives when there’s openness – when new voices, collaborations and risks are genuinely welcomed. Then maybe we can create an environment to attract a larger and/or newer/younger audience and expose the incredible experiences that theatre provides.
What has been your scariest onstage/on set moment so far (anything from forgetting words or cues to accidents or other unforeseen events)?
During Sarajevo, a show I just finished performing, there was a moment where Ivan, one of my actors, was delivering a monologue and suddenly broke down completely. He couldn’t stop crying. Time felt suspended. I didn’t know what the “correct” theatrical response was – there was only instinct. I stood up and went to him. To comfort him, That unscripted moment, born out of uncertainty and care, ended up being one of the most truthful moments in the piece. We kept it in the show because it reminded us why live theatre matters, because anything can happen and sometimes the most frightening moments are also the most beautiful. I would be remiss not to mention a performance in Cape Town that had me in a blind panic but also fundamentally shifted my relationship to theatre. We were performing Sarajevo during loadshedding, on a night that coincided with a memorial for Srebrenica [a town in Bosnia and Herzegovina where 8,000 Bosniak men and boys were killed in 1995]. The power went out for the majority of the show. All we had at our disposal were candles from the memorial and the torches we use. Large sections of the show were performed in candlelight and by the light of torches. There was no electricity, only what existed inside the world of the story. I was terrified the audience wouldn’t see us. We were all panicking , thinking this is the worst show ever – we were certain that people would walk out. At moments we wondered whether to stop the performance. Then at some point the space transformed. It felt like war. We felt it. And the audience did too. Even though our prime concern was that they couldn’t see us, instead, they listened more; felt more. They leaned forward. They smelled the matches. Every other sense was heightened. If they wanted to see, they had to actively look. And the work deepened. It wasn’t just about being seen. Because of that performance, because the only light came from within the story, and because it worked, I made a decision. I chose to never use conventional theatre lighting again. From that point on, all light would belong to the world of the play itself. What began as panic in the dark became a permanent artistic choice.
Tell us about your current production, and what makes your character interesting to play?
Nobody Told Me is a play about the brave souls who saved the lives of Jewish people in the Warsaw Ghetto. It’s a story of courage, duty and choices. Through Halina, a mother and a physician, the play explores devotion, delirium, laughter and gunfire beneath the shadow of barbed wire. It’s a haunting, beautiful work for audiences who love serious, powerful theatre. This story is deeply personal to me. Halina’s child Wanda, a Holocaust survivor, and Luc, her son and the playwright, are very close friends. Performing this work feels less like an “interpretation” and more like remembrance. It carries weight. I play the role of Ela – a difficult character to hold. She is misunderstood, overlooked and often disregarded by those closest to her. She becomes almost ghost-like. Present but unseen. She carries deep trauma from the ghetto, where she worked in a hospital posing as a doctor. She is a morphine addict and desperately in love with Stefan , her boyfriend. Ela is bruised, fragmented, and deeply human. She doesn’t wear her strength loudly, but she survives in her own way. Playing her means sitting inside contradiction, damage and resilience, longing and defiance, and allowing all of it to exist at once. She does not choose to exist, she chooses to live. And that decision, stripped of hope or heroism, is its own form of bravery.