The Blue Room

Richmond Theatre

Mark Tyson

From John Coltrane's 'Blue Train' to Suzanne Vega's 'Small Blue Thing', from Lloyd Cole's 'Perfect Blue' to Steely Dan's 'Deacon Blues', for lovers of melancholy music, blue is the colour. I know what you're thinking, you're thinking that you anorak reviewer is angling for a job on Mojo magazine, but you would be wrong(ish).

The Blue Room has a subtle musicality. David Hare's play is based on Arthur Schnitzler's 1897 play Reigen. The play was subsequently adapted by Max Ophuls, whose title La Ronde, is the title by which Schnitzler's play also came to be known. There is excellent original music by Andrew Whelan. There is, surprisingly, a song in the production, it is sung by Jason Connery and is called, you've guessed it, The Blue Room.

There has been a lot of talk about The Blue Room. The spectre of Nicole Kidman, who starred in a prodcution a few years ago, will undoubtedly be hovering for a while yet. There have been more general debates about Hollywood stars on the British stage and the casting of soap stars and celebrities. When the lights dim, however, a production has to stand or fall on its own merits. If actors want to move from the screen to the stage, or from the stage to the screen, or from the small screen to the big screen, it would be churlish of us to try to stop them.

The Blue Room takes La Ronde's ingenious structure and gives it a contemporary reworking. There are ten vignettes, each portraying a sexual encounter between two characters. One of the characters then proceeds to the next scene. So we start with 'the girl and the cab driver', then 'the cab driver and the au pair', then 'the au pair and the student': you get the picture.

All the characters are ably played by Tracy Shaw and Jason Connery. This is Tracy Shaw's first role since leaving Coronation Street where she starred for several years as dippy hairdresser Maxine. The original version of La Ronde scandalized 19th century morality. Today the play is open to endless interpretation. We are accustomed to following the developments of celebrity couplings. Perhaps Hare is suggesting that its about time we stop gawping, and got down and dirty ourselves. Then again, in putting sex up front, he frees himself to look at our needs and desires in a deeper and more complex way. These characters are clearly not after 'just one thing'. Evolutionary psychologists reduce all of our motivations to sex. But here we are looking at sex as a means to a variety of ends, which are personal and individual.

It is questions of personal identity that concentrate our minds today. This is made explicit by the Aristocrat, who wonders if we are ever one person, and reflects on the way in which we are different people with different people. Each scene allows us to see a different side of each character. Using just two actors emphasises this point.

La Ronde looked at the dark side of human desire. Today we are world weary and looking for a spirit of playfulness to keep our ennui at bay. The Blue Room is more bittersweet than dark.

Run over.