Following a successful premiere season at Sydney’s Belvoir Street Theatre in 2023, Thomas Weatherall has brought his affecting one-person show to Brisbane audiences in La Boite’s Roundhouse Theatre.
Blue is the story of Mark, a young man who has had wave after wave of misfortune and loss crash over him since his early teenage years. His beloved older brother drowns. His dad leaves. He survives a suicide attempt. His mum gets sick.
Through all of these things, writing and the ocean provide a constant for Mark. He has moved out of home to study writing at university, and a burgeoning romance with his pretentious housemate Effie provides a lifeline of love as he navigates the depths of his grief and finds the words to continue telling his story.
When he leaves home, Mark and his mother write letters to each other, and through this medium they are able to say things that may never have been said aloud. The anecdotes, metaphors, and timeline of the work do not always connect, but they do flow smoothly into each other, overlapping like waves on a beach.
Written and performed by Weatherall as an eighty-minute monologue, Blue is directed by award-winning dancer and choreographer Deborah Brown, and incorporates some stylised movement across the sweeping set designed by Jacob Nash. Simple props are used, and a pool of water is slowly revealed as Mark continues to tell his story, becoming part of his world. Projected video designed by David Bergman transports Mark and the audience to the ocean, from a bird’s eye view of the waves to being surrounded by and submerged within them.
Mark makes connections with the people in his life through music, and sound design and composition by Wil Hughes supported this aspect of the storytelling. The use of a payphone and a Discman placed this work in a specific time period, but the themes and ideas that Blue addresses remain equally relevant now, if not more so.
Weatherall speaks clearly and sincerely, projecting to the audience seated on three sides of the Roundhouse Theatre. The descriptive storytelling painted a clear sensory picture, strongly supported by Hughes’ sound design that added crashing waves and crackling fire, and Weatherall’s stage presence never wavered. Lighting design by Chloe Ogilvie waxed and waned with the storytelling, from clinical white and the warm yellow of sand to the deep blue of the ocean and oranges and reds of a fire.
In addition to its themes of grief and the catharsis that can come from sharing your story, the work touches on the intersection of mental health and masculinity. Mark intellectualises the catastrophes he has experienced, as well as some that he has not experienced but is using as an analogy, explaining them to the audience in clinical terms and stages. Blue also explores the shifting expectations of early adulthood and Mark’s experience of relating to his mother as a person as well as a parent.
Thomas Weatherall’s Blue is an affecting solo piece of theatre that addresses pressing themes around the intersection of masculinity and mental health, as well as the evergreen and universal themes of loss, family, grief, and growing up.
Blue will be performed at the La Boite Roundhouse Theatre, Kelvin Grove, from 16 May – 1 June 2024
For ticketing and further information, visit the La Boite Theatre website
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