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Theatre listings > Blue/Orange. - Tour & Scottish Premiere. Playwright - Joe Penhall. Director - Michael Emans. Designer - Lyn McAndrew. Lighting Designer - Davy Cunningham. Voice Support - Ros Steen. Company - Rapture Theatre - Company Website. Cast - here . 2005 Tour Dates and Times - here . Seen to review at Brunton Theatre Musselburgh Scotland on 7 May 2005. Run Time - 2 hours 30 mins including one Interval . Reviewer - Thelma Good. All respond to the rhythm and pulls. Chris is a black man in a hard place, a NHS mental ward. He's been there nearly 28 days, will he be released when his Section 2 compulsory admission for assessment is up? His doctor is Bruce in the first year of his training to be a psychiatrist, Robert his supervisor is a consultant who still hopes to be a professor - Chris on other hand has a fruit stall he could go back to. In scenes of tension with sharp comic moments you believe first one then another of the trio. Joe Penhall's Blue/Orange is like Mamet-like in the way the three men spiral around one another using words and what power they have to try gain what they want. But that's not all the play encompasses. It has us questioning what is sanity, some of Chris's perceptions leaving aside his relationship to oranges could be understandable reactions to living on the White City estate in London. He is after all a young, slightly agitated young black man. The politics of working for a superior and our partially or wholly suppress views of people who may come from different cultures are also confronted. Rapture Theatre's production gives this play its Scottish Premiere and director Michael Emans has brought a cracking cast to this tautly written play and directed them so its power never falters.Jimmy Chisholm, seen here in a rare serious role is the maverick consultant, Robert and delivers just the right edge of seemingly on top bravura. As the ingenue aspiring psychiatrist Bruce Greg Powrie expertly gives us a character who is always one pace behind where the confrontations are really going. Christopher John Hall, in his Scottish debut, shows he's one of Britain's most powerful actors as he gives us this young man who speaks with a slam poetry tongue and tries to control the involuntary movement so many patients treated by haloperidol have. In the play each of them go through a considerable range of emotions, not all given spoken voice but very good though Chisholm and Powrie are, it's Hall whose role gives him the most incredible range which he more than fullfills. All the cast respond to the rhythm and pulls of Penhall's text so we hang on every word and move, laugh and wonder who is sane. The company's designer Lyn McAndrew's hard surfaced metallic set lit by Davy Cunningham gives the production a setting which concentrates the dynamics and reflects back the three characters echoes of one another. If you've never got detached from normal mental life or have found keeping normal difficult this play and production will give you a more than effective first or repeat dose to bring us to sanity, awareness of racialism and knowing how to play the game to all. © Thelma Good 7 May 2005 - Published on EdinburghGuide.com Cast- Christopher - Christopher John Hall, Bruce - Greg Powrie and Robert - Jimmy Chisholm. 2005 Tour Details of Rapture Theatre's production of Blue/Orange . Tour begins 29 - 30 April at Paisley Arts Centre 0141 887 1010. 4 May at Motherwell Civic Theatre 01698 302 999. 5 - 6 May at St Andrews Byre Theatre 01334 475 000. 7 May at Brunton Theatre Musselburgh 0131 665 2240. 10 -14 May at Glasgow Citizens Theatre 0141 429 0022. 15 May at Stirling macRobert 01786 466 666. 17 May at Livingston Howden Park 01506 433 634. 18 May at Edinburgh North Edinburgh Arts Centre 0131 315 2151. 19 May at Ayr Gaiety Theatre 01292 611 222. 20 - 21May at East Kilbride Arts Centre 01355 261 000. 23 May at Whithorn Swallow Theatre 01988 850 368. 24 May at Balmaclellan Village Hall 01644 420 374. 25 May at Kirkcaldy Adam Smith Theatre 01592 412 929. 26 May at Rutherglen Eastfield 0141 641 8319. 27 May at Cumbernauld Theatre 01236 732 887. 28 May at Easdale Island 01852 300 113. 30 May at Oban Corran Halls 01631 567 333. 31 May -1 June at Dervaig Mull Little Theatre 01688 302 828. 3 June at Peebles Eastgate Centre 01721 725 777. 4 June at Greenock Arts Guild 01475 723 038. 6 June at Inverness Spectrum Centre 01463 221 842. 7 June at Thurso Mill Theatre 01847 89690. 8 June at Ullapool McPhail Centre 01854 613 336. 9 June at Rosshire Adross Hall 01349 880591. 10 June at Isle of Skye Sabhal Mor Ostaig 01471 844 207. 11 June at Sunart Centre Stronthian 01397 709 228. 16 June at Crawfordjohn Village Hall 01864 504 265. 17-18 June at Dundee Rep Theatre 01382 223530. Tour ends. Theatre Editor, Thelma Good's e-mail is thelma@edinburghguide.com Although every effort has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the information presented in these pages, no responsibility can be accepted for any errors or omissions. Theatre listings >
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