Birmingham Repertory Theatre – until 20th April 2024
Reviewed by Emma Millward
5*****
“We looked evil in the eye, paid the price for being curious”
Curiosity and its consequences is a theme that runs throughout Emma Rice’s Blue Beard. Based around a French folktale, the most famous version written by Charles Perrault in 1697, it tells the story of a man who continually marries and murders his wives. Emma Rice’s adaptation offers a new spin on an old classic. She presents it through many mediums. There’s horror, comedy, music, cabaret, magic and acrobatics all within one show.
The show opens with humour and a fair few swear words from our Narrator, Mother Superior (Katy Owen), who leads the Convent of the Three F’s (Fearful, F***** and Furious). She tells the tale of the darkly flamboyant Magician Blue Beard (Tristan Sturrock). We meet Treasure (Patrycja Kujawska) and her two daughters, Lucky (Robyn Sinclair) and Trouble (Stephanie Hockley), who soon become entranced by him. Lucky swiftly marries him. He seduces her and leaves her alone in his beautiful house, with strict instructions not to use a key he hangs from the ceiling that opens a door. Curious Lucky opens the door and finds out the horrifying truth of her new husband’s murderous nature, and the bodies of his previous brides. Alongside this storyline, we also meet Lost Brother (Adam Mirsky) who comes to the Convent for help and tells the story of his older sister (Mirabelle Gremaud), a free-spirited musician who teases him relentlessly before she heads off to perform at her gig.
The first act does feel a little slower than the second, but ultimately it all ties up perfectly by the finale of the show, and it leaves the audience rethinking everything they have just witnessed. The music throughout the show is performed onstage by both composer Stu Barker and the cast. The score is beautiful, ranging from jazz to classical, with a little bit of rock music thrown in.
The amazing ensemble of eight performers somehow makes it feel like there are many more performers onstage, even when their characters are not directly involved in the action, you can see them at the edges of the stage taking it all in. Although they are all superb in their own right, Katy Owen stands out as the gruff Mother Superior. She is darkly comedic throughout, making the audience laugh one minute, before ultimately breaking our hearts with the most heart-wrenching outpouring of raw emotion that I have ever seen performed onstage before.
The audience were fully immersed in the show from start to end. From laughing and joining in with the audience participation elements of the show, to total silence (except for the occasional sounds of crying from the audience) at the emotional climax of the piece. The show has an age guidance of 14+. Expect triggering content, explicit language, violence, blood and sexual themes. I attended the show unsure of what to expect. Based on the information I had read beforehand, it sounded like a strange show. But it turned out to be such a thought-provoking and powerful piece of theatre about consent, grief, personal safety and violence.