From the outset this ‘fairy tale for adults’ by Milk Presents seems keen to do a lot of the work for its audience. Even the title is painstakingly explanatory. But the company needn’t try so hard; they are more engaging when they let the material and their own natural exuberant style speak for themselves.
Bluebeard tells the story of a randy and murderous nobleman who works through wives with as much panache as Henry VIII. But when Pam, his current object of seduction, begins to twig about the deadly fate of her predecessors it is our moustached villain who must avoid a sticky end.
Whilst the acting here feels under-baked, this is a company with a lot of rag-tag flair and visual imagination. Their seemingly low-tech set is strung together like an intricate piece of machinery and the cast move around whizzing buckets, sheets and bicycle wheels with admirable smoothness. This is an ingenious piece of design, full of tandems that power light bulbs and dancing coat hangers: it would make any inventor jealous.
The faded Victorian style of performance which forcefully marks the production feels expected in a theatrical world so indelibly marked by ‘whimsy’ at the moment. But it is given an added sense of salaciousness here and the cast give it their all whether they are being seducer, seduced or impassive chorus, changing from one to the other cheerfully.
The jaunty live music adds a sense of sharing stories around the fire to the proceedings and the cast are all impressive players. Full of toothy grins and over enthused plucking of strings they positively revel in the rustic folk melodies that whirl our heroines into deadly spins and bring a real sense of sadness and dread to Pam’s ghastly revelations.
It is the need for a ‘mission statement’ which is at fault here. Milk Presents want to subvert classic tales, putting the spotlight on ones which have reinforced attitudes towards restrictive gender roles. So they turn this French folktale into a morality play with three alternate and increasingly feminist conclusions. Each one feels more tagged-on than the last until we are being told that ‘women shouldn’t have to be expected to get married’, a message that feels laboured.
In the end the production feels idea-rich but in need of a stronger directorial and editorial hand. But as this fledgling company are determined to give us sugar to make the medicine go down, it doesn’t completely stick in the throat. There’s a huge amount of invention on display and when they manage to escape their well meaning stranglehold on the story, there are some real moments of sweetly creative theatrical entertainment to be had. The overriding feeling one comes away with though is that, in both message and execution, sometimes less really is more.
