Music: Stu Barker
Writer and Director: Emma Rice
Emma Rice is reclaiming Perrault’s story of Blue Beard for a 2024 feminist audience, and it hits home in a painful reminder that we still have so much more work to do.
The triumphant return of Rice’s signature unique theatre-making style is welcome to York. The 20-year knee-high veteran, ex-artistic director of Shakespeare Globe and now artistic director of Wise Children is known for creating visually stunning work that utilises popular culture alongside traditional theatre-making techniques borrowed from Greecian chorus’ and grand guignol.
Here we see the folktale of Bluebeard (Tristan Sturrock), the 15th-century serial killer, expertly intertwined with the story of a murdered woman. The tale of Bluebeard tells of a woman called Lucky (Robyn Sinclair) who in grief, meets and marries a man with a blue beard, who sweeps her off her feet. Her family, at first dubious, are won over by Bluebeard’s wealth and perceived generosity.
When Bluebeard goes away, he leaves his new wife with keys to everywhere, with the instruction that there is one room in which she must not enter. However, with her lover away and a party in full swing, curiosity overcomes Lucky and she opens the forbidden room to find the bodies of all his ex-wives. She tries to hide her folly, but the key is magical and retains the blood of the dead women.
Many scholars interpret the Bluebeard story as a fable preaching obedience to wives, Rice has reclaimed this as a rage against male-on-female violence. In her forward, she speaks of the murders of Sarah Everard and Zara Aleena bringing home her feelings of anger and loss.
These feelings are displayed in a gut-wrenching performance from Katy Owen as Mother Superior. Owen’s performance is spectacular, and deserving of many awards. She has the audience laughing, chanting and crying, guiding us through the twisting narrative with enigmatic charm and deftness.
The ensemble cast is extraordinarily talented, displaying physical theatre, musicianship, balletic, contortionist, magic and combat skills, and each with a firm grip on character and emotion. They carry the sexy, dangerous and beautiful world of the show with virtuoso expertise, taking the audience on an exciting and exhausting journey.
The set is reminiscent of old-style magic shows and circus rings, all utilised to perfect effect but the show relies completely on the talents and skills of the cast, everything else is merely there to showcase them.
Rice is certainly not pulling her punches with this performance, her message is loud and clear that we are not going to take this anymore. The stunning climax of the show is like a knife to the gut, calling on audiences to stand against the violence that has taken the lives of so many women through history purely because they are women. But this isn’t just a feminist call to action, it is one of the most entertaining, exciting, funny, violent, exposing, charismatic, sexy and unique pieces of theatre to grace UK stages.
If you only see one show this year, make it this one and join the sisterhood. “It is the work that allows restorative justice, making amends, hope.” Stella Duffy, Psychotherapist and Writer
Runs until Saturday 9th March 2024
The Reviews Hub Score
Total game changer
