The Blue Room gained fame in London thanks to Nicole Kidman appearing in it. And getting naked in it for Sam Mendes' version for the Donmar. In fact it was Mendes who asked David Hare to write his version of Arthur Schnitzler's play
'Der Reigen' - also known as
La Ronde. This base material being so blue that even Schnitzler thought was too blue to be performed.
Most us us know, or can tell from reading thus far that this is a play about sex. But it's not just that, in the same way that it was disappointing that so many people probably remember it for Kidman's nudity, this play is undersold if you think it's just about sex. It's really about men and women, love and sex, sex and class and, as the Barbican says: actors and the theatre.
The
Barbican's Blue Room is only running for a few days so you've limited opportunities to witness these stories, and the play has many separate stories, of love, deception, betrayal and desire. It's racy, yes, but it;s also very interesting. Hare's left in some of the Freudian ideas of projection which were so timely in
Der Reigen - originally written in Vienna in 1900.
