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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Arifa Akbar

Bluets review – Maggie Nelson’s blue riffs become left-field cine-theatre

Ben Whishaw in glasses, black beanie hat and black shirt looking to camera surrounded by film studio props
Ben Whishaw at his film-making console with camera, table and standing mic in Bluets. Photograph: Camilla Greenwell

Maggie Nelson’s book-length meditation on the colour blue comprises 240 short, non-sequitur paragraphs that flit from the loss of a lover to the injury of a friend and the protagonist’s descent into depression, along with abstract reflections on colour.

It is fitting that such an experimental text should get experimental treatment in its staging. The director, Katie Mitchell, uses microphones, cameras and screens to turn it into theatre as overt and contemporaneous film-making.

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