Blue Beard (Modern Plays) - Softcover

Emma Rice

Softcover

ISBN 10: 135047648X ISBN 13: 9781350476486

Publisher: Methuen Drama (UK), 2024

Synopsis

When someone tells you not to look, OPEN THE BLOODY DOOR!

Blue Beard the Magician makes hearts flutter and pupils dilate. With a wink, a stroke and a flick - things just seem to vanish. Cards, coins, scarves… and women.

Puff! Gone. Without a trace. He meets his match when his young bride discovers his dark and murderous secret. She summons all her rage, all her smarts and all her sisters to bring the curtain down on his tyrannous reign.

Emma Rice brings her own brand of theatrical wonder to this most beguiling and disturbing of tales. With her signature sleight of hand, Blue Beard explores curiosity and consent, violence and vengeance - all through an intoxicating lens of music, wit and tender truth.

Written by Emma Rice, this edition was published to coincide with Wise Children’s 2024 tour, in a co-production with Birmingham Rep, HOME Manchester, Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh, and York Theatre Royal.

About this title

About the Author

Emma Rice is the proud and excited Artistic Director of her new company, Wise Children. She adapted and directed Wise Children’s debut production, Angela Carter’s Wise Children (The Old Vic/UK tour). As Artistic Director of Shakespeare’s Globe (2016–18), she directed Romantics Anonymous, Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Little Matchgirl (and Other Happier Tales). For the previous 20 years, she worked for Kneehigh as an actor, director and Artistic Director.

Her productions for Kneehigh include: The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk, Tristan & Yseult, 946: The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips, The Wild Bride, The Red Shoes, The Wooden Frock, The Bacchae, Cymbeline (in association with RSC), A Matter of Life and Death (in association with the National Theatre), Rapunzel (in association with Battersea Arts Centre); Brief Encounter (in association with David Pugh and Dafydd Rogers Productions); Don John (in association with the RSC and Bristol Old Vic); Wah! Wah! Girls (in association with Sadler’s Wells and Theatre Royal Stratford East for World Stages); and Steptoe and Son.

Notable engagements elsewhere: the West End production of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Oedipussy (Spymonkey); The Empress (RSC); and An Audience with Meow Meow (Berkeley Repertory Theatre).

Edition details

• Publisher: Methuen Drama (UK)
• Publication date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 135047648X
• ISBN 13: 9781350476486
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 72