She’s Not There depicts the life of a lust-ridden Italian, favoured by wealthy and powerful patrons, who eschews a religious career and scholarly pursuits for dastardly escapades and lots of sex. Sounds a bit like Casanova’s memoirs, doesn’t it?

Actually, the play is Patrick Garety’s dramatisation of the life of fifteenth-century Florence-born painter Fra Filippo Lippi. Seemingly a proto-Giacomo, said life – escaping from pirates, creating beautiful art, sleeping with his model for the Madonna (a young resident of Prato nunnery) – should be terrifically exciting stuff.

Sadly, this isn’t the case. For a start, the main character has all of the voracious lust but none of the charm for the audience to warm to him and his adventures, never mind the women he encounters. The affairs he has are not with conquests he’s won over but with a whore, whose profession means (as the character herself points out) she will be seduced by anyone for the right price; his advances towards his employer’s wife are rejected, and he abducts rather than marries his long-term partner and true love, the novice Lucrezia.

Fairly little about the real Filippo’s life is known, but this doesn’t excuse the fact that not enough that’s interesting happens in this play: Filippo’s flights and fallings-for are repetitive, and the ending is expected and abrupt. Nuanced emotions could have made the production fascinating; instead, the same reactions are reiterated and, crucially, Filippo’s various relationships aren’t given enough time to develop to be the captivating connections they should have been.

The play is somewhat redeemed by certain aspects. The beginning of the performance is visually arresting, as is Tom de Freston’s excellent art that hangs on the walls behind the performers. To integrate this element into the set design works well, and more generally, the simple (but not stark) stage set-up doesn’t slow down the action and sits nicely in the unusual L-shape of the Playroom. And the acting is good, breathing life into stock characters.

She’s Not There’s decent cast and interesting visuals will hold your attention, but the plot fails to live up to its promising premise.

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