Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Cast: Brandon McCaffery, Alice Merivale, Emma Vaudrey, John Schumacher.
It is the sins of the past that we inherit, perhaps shame gets sprinkled into the D.N.A., a dash of wickedness and a whole load of emotional turmoil, if we are fortunate it skips us, loses its power with each generation, and eventually the gene which causes us to contemplate such vile acts and misdeeds is eradicated.
The study of evil, of the most wanton acts of depravity, is a science all of its own, from the one-time murderer who was pushed to extremes by society or those to whom they may have called friend, family, or even a lover, and onto the serial killer, the ones driven by a compulsion, by the fabric of life, of the cheap thrill and who will testify on the stand that it was act of God, of hate, of madness. Yet the sins of the past float in the air, they act as a catalyst, and the question of does Blood Run Deep hangs in the public conscious and bar room talk, sending a chill down the spine when we consider our own close calls with our temper, or someone else’s obsession.
Blood Runs Deep is a taut examination of what happens to a person’s mind when they are exposed to a long-held secret, the truth of their existence, the question of nature v nurture being honed with devastating results, of trying to understand what the effect it has on others that have been caught up in the lie, and perhaps their own personal involvement with so many deaths.
Written by David Paul and Emma Culshaw and directed with a keen forensic eye by Margaret Connell, Blood Runs Deep is a chilling but utterly fascinating production, arguably one of the more unsettling productions to have been performed in recent times at the Unity Theatre. This though is a proof positive of the character of the play and it must be congratulated for having the steel, the courage to be go against current fashion. For in that steel the performances of the four actors, Brandon McCaffery, Alice Merivale, Emma Vaudrey, John Schumacher are simply brilliant, exacting the passion, the fear and the questioning with unquestionable dedication.
Producing murder is never easy, life is not truly like an Agatha Christie where the detail is caught up only tentatively in the why; murder is what comes from within, the compulsion to end a life, and whether it is subconsciously entrenched in our soul, as Blood Runs Deep shows, some secrets should be allowed to die. Incredibly honest and brutally examined, Blood Runs Deep is a deep-seated gem.
Ian D. Hall