On Stage: New Twist on Bluebeard

Saw this intriguing article about a new interpretation of Bluebeard on stage. My excerpt is but a part of the article as always, so click through to read more.

From Bluebeard’s Dark Bunker Intrigues Young New Wife: London Stage Review by Warwick Thompson:

Josef Fritzl, the Austrian man who imprisoned and raped his daughter in a secret bunker, has entered the world of lyric drama.

Daniel Kramer’s new production of Bartok’s “Duke Bluebeard’s Castle” for English National Opera is specific in its references. This contemporary Bluebeard dresses in a central-European, Tegernsee-style jacket. He keeps his family in a concrete cellar. His psychopathic behavior flips on a coin: He’s brutal one minute, and childishly silly the next.

This is the man who brings home a new young wife called Judith. She begs him to open the seven locked doors that she sees around her and to reveal what lies behind them.

There are pluses and minuses to Kramer’s this-represents- that approach. There’s no doubting the modern relevance of the famous fairytale, or its chilling force.

The review isn't stellar--claims the intensity is missing--but the interpretation is certainly current and even relevant with all of the recent news of women held captive and/or murdered of late.

It's a scary world out there, but fairy tales have always known that even if pop culture thinks they don't.