Review: GLASS. KILL. BLUEBEARD. IMP. at Shaking The Tree

What is the nature of human fragility and resilience? How easily do we justify destruction? Why do we forgive, and even relish, bad behavior? And what happens when fear curdles into anger? These questions drive Caryl Churchill’s GLASS. KILL. BLUEBEARD. IMP., four short, surreal plays that draw on myth, fairy tale, and horror. The quartet premiered in London in 2019 and is now at Shaking the Tree, directed by Samantha Van Der Merwe and performed by an excellent ensemble of eight: Anna Fitzwater, Kayla Hanson, Jonathan Cullen, Murri Lazaroff-Babin, Sami Yacob-Andrus, Lennox Blodgett, Pearl Fisher, and Jinju Colt.

The show opens with GLASS, a fairy tale about a girl who is made of glass (Sami Yacob-Andrus). Her parents do everything they can to protect her, even wrapping her in bubble wrap, but no parent can shield a child from everything. When her brother’s friend develops feelings for her, the play becomes a touching reflection on trauma, fragility, and resilience. It also considers what it means to have every feeling on display for the world to see, and what it costs to keep them locked away.

In KILL, a Greek god delivers a monologue that traces the vicious cycle of murder and revenge in Greek mythology as casually as a friend recounting a fun weekend adventure. The play shows how blindly following dogma leads to violence and destruction that are not only endless but utterly senseless. (On the night I attended, the god was Murri Lazaroff-Babin, though production photos suggest the role passes among different actors on different nights.) This piece resonated deeply with me, because although the stories are out of Greek mythology, the cycle being described doesn’t feel like ancient history. In an age of culture wars and actual wars, it feels as though we’ve simply picked up where the myths left off and are still carrying on the same senseless bloody story.

BLUEBEARD draws on the fairy tale of the nobleman who murders his wives and hides their bodies in a forbidden room. Churchill turns her attention to his friends (“You think only good people have friends?” one character asks). They get wildly drunk and talk about him and the many women he killed. The result is weird and disturbing, half party, half nightmare, and steeped in betrayal, guilt, and complicity.

Finally, IMP introduces two older cousins living a small life in rural England. Dot (Anna Fitzwater) is cantankerous, holding onto a lifetime of deep-seated rage. Jimmy (Jonathan Cullen) copes with encroaching depression by going on ever-longer runs. Then their anxious young niece, Niamh (Kayla Hanson), and Rob (Lazaroff-Babin), a mysterious but kind homeless man, come into their lives. The cousins are protective of Niamh, and Dot grows deeply suspicious of Rob for crimes she has mostly imagined. They may have a supernatural being at their disposal. What will they do with it?

The cast is fabulous and a true ensemble, with standout performances from Lazaroff-Babin in KILL (on the night I saw it) and from Fitzwater and Cullen in IMP. Van Der Merwe’s scenic design is, as usual, inventive and full of surprises, and I won’t spoil any of them here.

Individually and together, the four plays are deeply impactful, asking you to confront some of the hardest-to-face parts of being a person. It isn’t always comfortable, though there are parts that are unexpectedly funny. But as I often find at Shaking the Tree, the images and ideas don’t stay in the theatre. They keep crawling around your brain, making you consider events, people, and even yourself with a changed perspective. I highly recommend it.

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