[NoHo Arts District, CA] – A NoHo Arts theatre review of Annalisa Limardi’s NO at the Hollywood Fringe Festival 2025.
Annalisa Limardi’s spectacular solo show, NO, was invited to this year’s Hollywood Fringe Festival after winning the Hollywood Fringe Exchange Award. I can understand why they singled this play out for a special award; it really is astonishing.
One woman. One microphone. One microphone stand. The rest of the stage is bare, and Annalisa is actor, prop, set, music, composer…everything else. It’s a little tough to explain this show. It’s a woman on stage performing ‘no.’
And as a woman, I understood exactly what Annalisa was communicating immediately. One could almost say that her ‘no’ is the opposite of the ‘sorry’ that we all automatically regurgitate no matter what the question or proposition. ‘No’ is what we wish we said. Instead of ‘yes’, or ‘maybe’, or ‘sorry’ or ‘of course.’ Why do we find it so hard to say?
Age makes it easier, I say no more often now, but it can feel almost illegal to, doesn’t it? We are brought up to say yes. We are told to say yes to everything in order to succeed. That yes is a doing word, a giving word, a mantra. But ‘no’ is a dirty word. A blocking word. A word of denial. Aggressive, defeatist, wrong. I think we have been bamboozled into thinking we must always comply…no matter what. Especially women. We are called difficult and bitchy if we speak our minds or advocate for ourselves and if we dare to actually say no, well, it’s the end of the world!
Annalisa Limbardi uses every brilliant and beautiful piece of herself in this incredible play. Her body is an instrument, swirling and contorting and writhing and flexing as if she were shot with a thousand volts of lightning. She uses the microphone and its stand like dance partners. If the dance were a tango and the music were layers and layers of heartbeats.
There is dialogue, meaningful, purposeful and very specific, although it often feels conversational. Questions are asked and she answers, all while turning and flexing and timing her performance perfectly down to the microsecond. And it is all utterly flawless. It’s performance art. Highly choreographed but designed to give the impression of improvisation. As if we are all colliding together in these moments she creates. Our presence effecting the possible outcomes, like a magician manipulating the audience into thinking anything can happen when actually every possible eventuality has been predestined and predetermined.
Annalisa Limardi’s NO is an absolute triumph of a show. I barely drew a breath through the entire hour. And how anyone can keep this constant movement and incredible combination of words and music and movement going by themselves for this long is almost a miracle. This play is so so unlike anything I have ever seen before. It is a combination of the physical and the mental and the meaningful. It’s like watching one of the most insane sequences in The Matrix live, but with nuance and emotion and absolutely no tricks.
I wish I knew how this incredibly talented and creative Annalisa Limardi developed this amazing show. It’s like one long stunt/dance/poem with no pauses, all pressure and meaning. Its intensity is also part of the story. In our lives, we are rarely given a moment to actually think, are we? To decide who we are and why we need to say yes or no. It seems so arbitrary, and yet, it’s the most important thing of all. Yes and no. 0 and 1. Live or die. Our world is changing as I write this. It feels as if we are losing all control and all ability to know what is real and what is a lie. If we could only begin again, with ourselves as the center, then perhaps we could imagine a world where the word ‘no’ is a sacred one. A gentle, accepted and respected answer to any question. It just might save the world, and Annalisa Limardi’s NO might be just the beginning. If you ever have the chance to see this beautiful, heartfelt, mind-blowing show, then take it! I won’t take ‘no’ for an answer…
NO Team
Creator and performer Annalisa Limardi
Sound Design: Saverology
External Eye: Penelope Morout
English translation: Aldo Vittorio Grassi
With the support of Centro Servizi Culturali S. Chiara, AriaTeatro ETS, Pergine Festival, tuttoteatro.com