Bluets: an ‘experimental and engrossing’ production

The Royal Court’s new artistic director, the playwright David Byrne, has launched his tenure with a production “so technically sophisticated that it leaves the head spinning, but so full of poetic feeling that it penetrates the heart”, said Sarah Crompton on What’s on Stage. 

Adapted from Maggie Nelson’s book of prose poems, “Bluets” has been staged by director Katie Mitchell using her “live cinema” concept – a mix of live action and video screens. The result is an “experimental and engrossing” evening, which takes us inside the head of a woman who is heartbroken and unmoored, and obsessed with the colour blue – and whose consciousness is embodied on stage by three actors: Emma D’Arcy, Kayla Meikle and Ben Whishaw. “Bluets” “isn’t always easy to fathom”. But it’s “stylish and full of wonder”, and a “compelling portrait of sadness”.