Image credit: Camilla Greenwood
★★★
Joni Mitchell, Andy Warhol and Billie Holliday are all channelled to varying extents in Katie Mitchell’s Bluets, an experimental diatribe of depression. There are also elements of Patrick Keller’s London and Patricia Lockwood’s No One Is Talking About This, but it owes the most to Derek Jarman’s Blue, which it references directly with the familiar meditative melancholy of a contemplative narrator recounting a number of events in their life, all somehow linked to the colour blue. It’s a lyrical exploration of human suffering that has plenty of merits in stage form, but doesn’t manage to be entirely captivating.
Based on Maggie Nelson’s 2009 book of non-sequitur paragraphs, it was always going to be experimental. Nelson is a poet first and foremost, so hearing her words performed rather than written down feels fitting. The trio of actors Ben Whishaw, Emma D’Arcy and Kayla Meikle are impeccably in sync, all contributing to depict this single protagonist. Similarly dressed, they’ve evidently studied each other’s body language and diction to create together what always feels like a single entity – you’d be forgiven for thinking this has the feel of a monologue despite there being three people onstage at all times. There’s something about this splitting-into-three that suggests the fragmented sense of self, and therefore it’s effective. It’s surprising how clearly a sense of loneliness can be imparted given the actors are never physically alone onstage.
The performances work, though it’s debatable if the screens and props do. The actors stand before a triptych of screens, and in front of those, a litany of microphones, cameras and tray tables beset with props, all of which are used constantly but contribute little. The screens transport us to different scenes, from a swimming pool to a tube carriage to a supermarket checkout – oh, and there’s another larger screen on top too. There’s an element of this that could symbolise the clutter of a depressed mind – but ultimately, it’s needlessly taking up stage space and hems things in too much. It can often feel oversaturated, like there’s too much going on, and serves to hinder the plot rather than elevate it.
There’s a strong sense of teamwork here, with everyone contributing to the bigger picture, but it can’t quite move away from being slightly alienating. Writer Margaret Perry has taken source material that must have been a challenge to adapt and made it perhaps as accessible as possible, and director Katie Mitchell’s style is certainly original – but the lack of plot makes it slightly aimless. The protagonist ambles around London like a modern-day flâneur, commenting on the goings-on with little consequence, and although a lot of it is thought-provoking, it often feels like a sequence of unedited ideas jotted down that doesn’t expand into anything deeper.
It doesn’t always land, but there’s something to enjoy and reflect on here. For a trip down the experimental rabbit hole, it’s intriguing, innovative and brilliantly acted by three strong talents, but it feels like there’s somewhere further this could go before the lights go up.
Bluets is on at the Royal Court Theatre until Saturday 29th June.
Words by James Morton
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