Blue

Mark wants to be a writer – like his mum – and he spent his childhood reading books and writing alongside her. Now he’s moved out of the family home and into a share flat – and he’s still writing: letters to his mum, who eagerly writes back on distinctive yellow note paper.

Callan Purcell is Mark, commanding the audience’s attention throughout the eighty minutes of this one-man play. He tells Mark’s story with complete conviction, full of laughter from a memory with his brother; flinching as that happiness is drowned with one not so great. You can see the joy drain from Purcell’s body as he remembers the tragedy, his confidence sags, his words judder with uncertainty. This isn’t an actor delivering a monologue: it is the whole body reacting to the memories of the past and how those make him feel in the present. It is a tremendously powerful and physical performance.

Written by AACTA and Logie Award-winner and Kamilaoi man Thomas Weatherall, this is a beautiful story of a young man growing up with more than his fair share of tragedy. He takes the audience on a journey through Mark’s mental health as it undulates through normal life with a brother, dad, and mum, before crashing to the shore many times. Whether Mark is at the beach, in the sea, or quietly replying to his mum in his flat, Weatherall draws a detailed picture, yet still leaves room for our imagination.

Directed by Deborah Brown from Bangarra Dance Theatre, Purcell is graceful around the stage, moving with purpose – until those triggers of uncertainty are reflected in how he stutters with his walk, or can’t sit still on the single chair.

Gentle washes of light designed by Chloe Ogilvie give us cool whites, warm whites, all shades of blue, and a magnificent fire when Purcell talks of romantic love. Paired with the extraordinary organic video projection from David Bergman, light plays a vital part in providing the context in Purcell’s delivery of Weatherall’s words.

But water is the theme that pervades every component of the story: much of the narrative takes place in or next to water; the video is of the sea oscillating or its waves breaking onto a beach; and Jacob Nash and Cris Baldwin have designed a curved set shaped like a giant wave, textured with curves that resemble the white water that fizzes behind a wave that has just smashed the shore. That set is completed with a shallow moat, that Purcell uncovers before bathing his feet and soaking his body in the element that is behind much of his tragedy.

It’s the combination of theatrical elements that sustains this play’s brilliance: the components harmonious, then complementary, where the visuals lead the narrative without words, going places Mark doesn’t want to remember. There are memories of endless days and nights in hospital - watching over family, or being watched; and a painfully accurate reflection on a person’s final hours and minutes. And the constant is Mark and his mum exchanging hand-written letters. Each of them find writing difficult things much easier than speaking them – ironically realised in spoken conversation.

Weatherall started writing Blue whilst still in high school, completing it as the 2021 Balnaves fellow at Belvoir Street Theatre, which each year is awarded to a playwright or director to create new Indigenous-led stage work. It is a piece of fiction that most would expect is drawn from a lifetime, yet its first performance was when Weatherall was 22 years old.

The story leaves you wanting to know more about the happier times with his family, to gain a deeper recognition of the importance of those relationships. That could have been explored on the stage, or perhaps it’s Weatherall’s intention for the audience to examine how they relate to their own siblings and parents, and what events – good and bad – have influenced them, and impacted on how they think and feel.

Review by Mark Wickett

Photographer: Sam Roberts

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