Blue/Orange and By Order of Ignorance
In presenting Blue/Orange and By Order of Ignorance as a double bill the Sell a
Door Theatre Company serves
up a main course that fully satisfies followed by a dessert that doesn’t really
belong on the menu. Whilst the writing and performances in the first are
powerful, tight and emotionally intense, leaving the audience drained but with
plenty to digest, the second just makes you wonder what you came to the table
for. That said, the pairing of the plays is effective in that it invites us to
see contrasts and parallels in terms of truths, lies and identity-driven power
struggles.
Blue/Orange,
is just as shocking now as it was when
first produced in 2001, examining mental illness, the capacity of the
National Health Service to deal with this issue, power struggles within the system and
racism. Christopher (played with great intensity and passion by Peter
Muruako) is a young black man on the eve of his release from resident
psychiatric care; but is he really mentally stable enough for this to take
place? It soon becomes clear that what is really at stake is not so much
Christopher’s welfare but the reputation of the senior clinician, the maniacal,
overbearing and manipulative Dr Smith (Peter Collis). His behaviour contrasts
nicely with that of the frustrated younger psychiatrist, Bruce (sensitively
played by Tarl Caple), who eventually finds release for his frustration, but
finds no happy ending as a result.
The play concludes with a cliffhanger, leaving the
audience to make up their own minds about the saneness of the characters and
their ultimate fates. Brilliantly directed by David Hutchinson against the backdrop of Emily
Barratt’s minimalist set, this is a play that
provides plenty of food for thought.
In contrast, By Order of Ignorance tries to engage on too many
levels and succeeds only rarely: the writer/director, Robert
Gilbert, can’t
seem to decide whether this is a thriller with a political message or a parody.
Two young men, a well-known British TV reporter and an American soldier, find
themselves trapped in a café with a young Muslim terrorist following the failure
of his attempted suicide mission. Though injured, he manages to hold the pair
hostage; what follows is a battle for survival amid exchanges of ideas as each
pleads for their viewpoint.
Unfortunately, in trying to present each of the
characters’ viewpoints, Gilbert’s writing creates extremes, which are too broad
to win our sympathy. Only David Hutchinson‘s simple-minded terrorist Mo
succeeds in engaging, offering a painful portrayal of a character who has lost
his wits. Mo’s own beliefs have been supplanted to the extent that he cannot
deal with the situation he finds himself in, yet he maintains enough control to
create genuine moments of panic, leaving us uncertain as to what he will do
next.
– Dave Jordan
