I promise I wrote this just after seeing the play

Blue/Orange

From the beginning of the play Blue/Orange I was in a good mood, finally satisfied after being hungry all day with some sheesh, I was finally prepared for a good play. Once I sat down and looked around I thought the set design was interesting with the audience surrounding the set. It opened up the small space to many more audience members. The set was pretty simple, just an office room and it seemed to convey the location well enough, without being overdone. The play starts with a doctor and a patient, introducing their characters and the problem of the patients BPD. Unfortunately about 5 minutes into the play, I was lucky enough to be in one of five seats whose view was blocked by a pillar, so for about 20 minutes I could just hear the dialogue and not see the performance. That was not the end of the world since the focus was the dialogue anyway. The performances by all three actors were very well done and I enjoyed the acting. It was mentioned that this screenplay was originally cast for three men. I think the casting of women was a good choice. By casting women it added an extra layer of complexity onto the play, so now it also dealt with female power structures and I might have interpreted it differently if it was men. The sound was also very interesting, as it either played loud, energetic music that didn’t seem to really fit into the play, or at times of high tension, they played a tone in the background.  

Overall at the end of the play, I was a little unsure about the quality of the play but I enjoyed the final message. I thought the idea of creating a play where what you think is objective truth, “she’s crazy” and turning that on its head into: everyone being crazy, and “how can you say one person is crazy when everyone is a little crazy too.” From the play, I got that the ultimate reason for the play was to show that the things we take for certain truths are interpreted much differently by other people and that there is no real right answer to most questions. The dialogue of the play though, didn’t flow very well and a lot of the dialogue seemed useless. By editing the play to have the dialogue really drive home a final message I would have really enjoyed it. Because of its lack of clarity, I can’t even be sure what the message really is. The play was organized and acted well, and with changes to the dialogue this play would be very successful.


Cheers,
Kunal Lakhan-Pal