Review: BLUE DEPARTED, VAULT Festival

Anima Theatre Company present Blue Departed, a show marketed as a re-imagination of Dante's Inferno. On paper, the concept sounds interesting but on stage it's narrowed down to a harrowing exploration of love and drug abuse.

It doesn't have much in common with its original text and the only connection the piece has with Dante Alighieri's masterpiece is the mention of hell and the fact that the main character's brother takes him through what he defines as its nine circles after finding out that Beatrice has died of an overdose.

However, if we set aside the alleged link with the Divina Commedia, the play is lyrical and engaging. Playwright Serafina Cusack writes in gorgeous prose, she builds the tempo and is unafraid to employ dark humour to deliver her points and relieving the audience of her plot's implications. The long stream of consciousness she gives Him (Mark Conway, who is delightfully macabre and profoundly touching) is fascinating in its structure and poetry.

Directed by Henry C Krempels, Blue Departed is energetic and entertaining. He keeps the pace of the writing up, moving his actors around in a compelling pattern of hilarity and depth. The light and sound design - respectfully curated by Benny Goodman and Joshua Jacob with the director himself - help to develop the action and add amusing elements to the narrative.

All in all, the show is a poignant reflection on addiction that vastly strays away from its professed original material.

Blue Departed runs at VAULT Festival until 27 January.

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