Blue Heart
Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond
4/5

IF EXHILARATING, anarchic and unsettling sound like your idea of a good 90 minutes of theatre, the double bill Blue Heart by Caryl Churchill will hit the spot.

The mounting comedy in both pieces — a co-production between the Orange Tree and the Tobacco Factory theatres — is the perfect accompaniment to the fragmented dramas which unfold.

I say unfold advisedly. Imagine a magician folding a piece of paper over and over until it disappears — Churchill has that magic at her fingertips. To play with a simple storyline, creating the surreal one minute, the opposite the next, a writer has to have a sure touch and know how to harness the anarchic elements and Churchill certainly has those qualities.

Heart’s Desire, first staged nearly 20 years ago alongside its sister playlet Blue Kettle, is a straightforward tale in which a family awaits the daughter’s return from Australia. 

Yet, one minute in, this is anything but straightforward territory.

What ensues is a search for meaning in the tensions, differences of interpretation, lies — and the telling of lies — at the heart of families. Eccentricities, addictions, vulnerability, which can seem benign in a sweet old aunt and rather darker in a too-doting father, are all present.

The sheer physical precision of Andy de la Tour, Amelda Brown and Amanda Boxer is stunning and the belly laughs incited by the latter are welcome in an intense piece which plays tricks with structure and style.

But, as the magician Churchill knows, tricks are fun.

In Blue Kettle, a young man tells several women that they’re his mother — he’d been adopted and they believe him, with varying levels of cynicism, credulity and even complete indifference.

The excellent Maroussia Frank is my favourite “mother” — she has an important career, doesn’t like children and is therefore an impossible target for her con man “son” Derek, played with increasing subtlety by Alex Beckett.

As language breaks down, we rely on context and body language to satisfy our yearning for meaning — Churchill tells a good story but she lures us into finding the real truth within it.

Runs until November 19, box office: orangetreetheatre.co.uk

Review by Lynne Walsh