REVIEW - Blue Beard is a powerful play taking you on a roller coaster of emotions!

On Saturday, we went to HOME in Manchester to watch Blue Beard. Read what our reviewer Karen Ryder had to say about Emma Rice's latest production...

A play about rage, grief and heartbreak doesn’t sound like a play that can also make you belly laugh and bop along to upbeat and catchy tunes, yet that’s exactly what Emma Rice has achieved with Blue Beard.  Taking a centuries old French folktale of a magician who marries a girl named Lucky and lures her away from her loving family to live in his castle, only to test her and ultimately punish her, Rice flips the focus off the coercive, controlling magician, and instead gives the story back to the women he tries to silence, even making the rescuing brothers into female relatives.  Our evening kicks off by meeting a group of women known as the three F’s (fierce, f**ked and furious) when a young man stumbles upon their solace, seeking help.  Immediately suspicious of him, he is pinned to the ground until they are satisfied he means no harm.  The leader of the group, Mother Superior, starts to tell the story of Blue Beard, as an explanation as to why this group of women have no reason to trust men.  Lucky marries the magician, she is given the freedom of his castle, except for one room.  Curiosity wins and Lucky enters the room, only to find the butchered remains of the magician’s past six wives. 

Upon the magicians return, he is livid that his wife didn’t follow his instructions, and behave exactly as he told her to, so he tries to kill her.  But Lucky’s sister and mum turn up to rescue her and fight for their lives, resulting in the death of the magician.  The emphasis is on the lives of the women in the story, showing them to be vibrant, alive and loved.  They don’t simply become the forgotten victims in the story of a misogynistic, bullying, intimidating male figure who believes they should do and say exactly as he pleases.  Interspersed with this story, is the one of the young man who stumbled upon the home of the 3 F’s at the start.  He is told by the Mother Superior that he too must tell a story, and so he does.  His story is about his sister, who he brings alive with details and memories only a loved one can.  The conclusion to her story ends the entire show with an all too real, relevant and recent reminder.  An additional character twist brings the audience to an eerie and heartbreakingly uncomfortable silence as the emotion portrayed on stage is visceral, raw and stripped bare.  It is a stark reminder of the unequal and unsafe world women can find themselves living in, and perhaps the length our own heart and mind will go to in order to cope.

Blue Beard has music blended throughout, which is to be expected of an Emma Rice show.  All the cast not only act but sing and seemingly pick up a variety of instruments for fun to become a part of the band, such is their talent!  The songs (Stu Barker) have a folksy vibe to them, mashed up with a pop style, making them fresh, fabulous and genuinely catchy.  Music is also used to create ambiance and heighten our senses and emotions to wonderful effect.  The script is wildly funny with a dry sarcasm and brutal truth telling elements that cut straight through the proverbial to bluntly and brilliantly tell it exactly how it is.  Modern pop culture references are cleverly dotted throughout, stitching together a supposedly old folktale that should no longer be of relevance in our modern world, right to the here and now, showing parallel themes and similarities.  The set (Vicki Mortimer) gives us a subtle split level so we can see the narration verses the story unfolding.  On the raised level, a curtain hangs, allowing set pieces to be revealed throughout, including pianos, various sized wardrobes, a magician’s staging, and a coffin.  This reveal status ties in with the magician element of the story, and along with lighting, gives the entire staging a vaudeville, music hall feel.  With an acrobatic contortionist, and an actual magic trick of sawing a girl in half both presented, we are whisked between an age gone by and our own modern world, yet still somehow they both land in the same dark, heartbreaking place.

The story telling uses a variety of techniques to deliver this complex combination of stories, including a slow motion scene to portray the violence between the magician, Lucy, Trouble and their mother.  It is so detailed, controlled, and stylised that the impact is far stronger than if they had just gone for each other in real time.  Equally, fight scenes between the magician and Lucky were actually carried out via a series of timed reactions with them being entirely separate, rather than him laying a hand on her – a brilliant and respectful way to depict a story about male violence on women, without resorting to a vivid representation of it, and refusing to give these images any airtime.  Another storytelling choice was the use of stylised dance and movement from the women, with an almost Fosse feel to it.

The cast were clearly a strong team with infinite trust in one another.  Katy Owen as Mother Superior is outstanding and steals the show.  Rarely off stage, she never stops with her quirky and zany performance, ensuring movement and connection throughout.  She lands jokes brilliantly, has the best vocal deliverance for her storytelling elements, and then becomes an entirely different performer at the end, with such raw emotion that it takes great restraint not to rush onto the stage and give her a hug.   Robyn Sinclair plays Lucky, the sister who marries the magician Blue Beard and is both impassioned and playful in the role.  She is strong, fiery, and full of fun.  Stephanie Hockley plays the second sister Trouble, and gives us an amazing piano and song solo, full of sass, jazz, and pizazz.  Patrycja Kujawska is their mum Treasure, and gives a heartfelt monologue on how her husband was a good man, how he gave her love, trust, and freedom, showing us that this isn’t a play to simply bash men.  Blue Beard is performed by Tristan Sturrock, who instils a dominating, and intimidating figure, dripping with a suave sardonic demeanour.  It is a powerful performance.  Adam Mirksy contrasts this entirely with his performance of the lost and innocent boy looking for help.  His entire performance is open, honest, and innocent, until he has to switch it up at the end, where he shows a beautiful tenderness towards his mum.  The boys sister is played by Mirabelle Gremaud, who has a hauntingly beautiful and unique singing voice.  I could have listened to her all day.

Blue Beard ends in the present day.  Silence grips the theatre as CCTV cameras show the final moments of a young woman who is followed home.  Theatre meets reality.  We have seen this played out far too often in recent times on the news.  Emma Rice’s Wise Children company left many audience members paralysed with emotion, moved and perhaps genuinely involved in their own various stories of what we had just watched.  From a theatre perspective, I found the delivery of the combined elements of folktale and reality a tad confusing at times and with a few unanswered questions.  Perhaps making the reality element clear early on might have reduced its impact at the end, I’m not sure, but it would personally have helped solidify the message for me, which would have made the message stronger.  However, there is no denying there was a huge impact, so that might just have been my own preferential way of processing, and I thoroughly applaud and respect the ingenuity of what has been achieved.  Half the population of women do not feel safe walking home alone at night, even in busy places.  Walking alone without fear is a right we should all have, and yet the emphasis that has come out of recent news stories is focused on what women should be doing to help protect ourselves rather than the things that should be done to educate these particular men to alter their mind set, believes and misogyny.  Wise Children have given a voice to an important topic, one that continued to be discussed openly and with importance by everyone as they exited the theatre.

WE SCORE BLUE BEARD...




Blue Beard is on at HOME, Manchester until Saturday 24th February 2024.

BOOK YOUR TICKETS HERE!