Review: BLUE, Seven Dials Playhouse

Only 69 days into 2024 and, at the time of writing this, 166 civilians have been killed by law enforcement in the United States so far. In 2023, it was 963 people. In comparison, the United Kingdom shot one man in 2024 and two in 2023. We don’t even have to do the maths to realise how staggering those numbers are. These continued misconducts are mostly racially motivated, with officers overreacting and showing brutal measures to non-white members of the public in particular.

There have been endless conversations that explore the reasons behind these shocking actions, generating movements like Black Lives Matter and going as far as suggesting police abolition. This endemic hatred is the product of the brokenness of the judicial system. Defunding the departments, using Body Cams, installing dashboard cameras are all useless if they’re still paired with the lack of repercussions for those hires who aren’t the right fit for the job. June Carryl’s play is a direct study of the subject.

Set in March 2021, it follows the interrogation of Sergeant Sully by Detective Parker after he killed a young veteran with PTSD. Boyd, however, is a close family friend of LaRhonda’s and her husband’s ex-partner. Could another representative of the same force ever be impartial and see the facts for what they are, or do badges simply protect their own?

Carryl writes an unflappable harangue, analysing how an organisation like the Los Angeles Police Department will most probably never be able to be completely unbiased and treat the investigation as they would if they weren’t directly involved in it. Her writing is as multifaceted as the problem is, bringing in the events that unfolded in Washington, D.C. on the 6th of January 2021 as well. Directed by Michael Matthews, Blue is a pressure cooker of a production built on meaty, juicy discourse and impeccable rhetoric. A confident script and a brilliant company don’t need any smoke and mirrors to attain greatness.

Carryl’s Detective is joined on stage by John Colella as the cop who micromanages his own inquiry. They share the spotlight with equal vigour, pulling the scene like an elastic band, handling the dialogue with natural ease and stunning passion. Their exchanges keep twisting alongside the serpentine changes in Sully’s story. Straightforward yet empathetic, Carryl is calm and collected opposite Colella’s explosions: it becomes a match of patience and self control versus a short fuse and a level of audacity that only a white male can possess. “The world is sick with the poison of you,” Parker screams at him when her defences finally collapse and her rage is set free. But Sully has plenty of emotional and professional leverage on his side, so the tape recorder (that's as antiquated as the structure upholded by the pair) that sits between them is hastily turned off. If she is a clap of thunder, he is an earthquake.

It’s easy to understand why Blue garnered excellent reviews and a Fringe First Award for their run in Edinburgh last year. It’s an intense, alarming, carefully eloquent, and raw achievement. It’s a reactive and reactionary piece of theatre, real and terrible, relevant and urgent. And if all of that that doesn’t entice you to book for this exquisite sociopolitical debate: it’s only 60 minutes long and the perfect prologue to an evening of discussion at a bar.

Blue runs at the Seven Dials Playhouse (formerly known as The Actors Centre) until 30 March.

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