Bluebeard’s Castle, A Medieval Musical Thriller by Russian director and playwright Sofia Streisand, making her U.S. debut at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, displays immense ambition that achieves only partial realization. Streisand took her inspiration from La Barbe Bleue, the French fairy tale of a serial killer whose preferred victims are the women wed to him. First published in 1697 by Charles Perrault under the title, Histoires ou contes du temps passé (Stories or Tales from Past Times), the tale of Bluebeard is believed to have been based on the historical crimes of Comorre the Cursed, a Breton Chieftain of the 6th century whose murderous intentions extended beyond his wives to both his brothers and step-children. Co-author Elena Hanpira offers lyrics (adapted into English by Nancy Magarill and Terra Naomi) and Sergey Rubalsky and Artem Petaykin composed the score.

Casey Burke, Nathan Mohebbi, and Shannon Lee Clair

Streisand adds specific detailing of her own, while keeping the traditional narrative framing of the wife murdering Bluebeard. She opens with a peasant woman (Shannon Lee Clair) wandering over a dark, desolate landscape as she fearfully relates the suspicious deaths in the castle of Bluebeard. It is the aftermath of a fierce and bloody civil conflict in which a country’s militant northern forces, fueled by their fundamental religious passions, have brutally overwhelmed a rebellion by the kingdom’s pacifistic and pastoral south with a butchery that bordered on the genocidal. In an attempt to cloak their vicious subjugation of the vanquished people as a reunifying Anschluss, a show marriage has been arranged between Lord Henry (Nathan Mohebbi), the North’s most dreaded commander, and Judith (Casey Burke) the sole survivor of a noble southern house, orphaned by the slaughter of her entire family at the hands of the invading northern horde.

 Shannon Lee Clair

The setting shifts to the foreboding interior of the castle as the newly married couple arrives. The chaste and callow bride is left overawed and quivering before her husband’s severe and unkind manner and his constant reminders that she and her defeated nation deserved all the suffering that befell them due to her people’s godless ways.

Here, Streisand diverges from the classic narrative, as it is revealed that the bridegroom was not the source of the malignant reputation that darkens the castle and his family’s name, but it was his father, known as Bluebeard, who viciously murdered Henry’s mother within the castle’s walls. Henry presents Judith with the keys to the castle, telling her she may explore the shadowy expanse of the cavernous dwelling where she’ll spend the rest of her life. He gives her permission to open any room but forbids her from entering the north wing.

Casey Burke and Shannon Lee Clair

But the dark bleakness of the manor’s recesses still resonates with the voice of Henry’s father, Bluebeard (William Salyers), while the shade of his slain mother (Shannon Lee Clair) wanders its passages.  Judith’s investigation of the castle leads to the discovery of contrasting rooms – such as the master bedroom with tapestries hung from the walls that seemingly offer clues to some awaiting puzzle. But Judith confronts Henry, saying she wants to open all the rooms, and the two go on together. They open the chapel where Henry’s murdered mother once lay in state (Clair plays her spirit, “The Victim”), the hunting room filled with trophies of the kill, and the dungeon, where Henry hears the cruel voice of his father speaking to him.

Nathan Mohebbi, Casey Burke, and Shannon Lee Clair

Throughout, songs appear, some connected to a specific room, others shared between the couple struggling to find a path to union, still more as the voices and ghosts of the castle seek to keep them apart. The best musical moments are those involving the choreography of Irina Lyahovskaya, with both Burke and Mohebbi excelling in these dance interludes.

Musically, the show and cast are strong, with each of the performers having one or more numbers in which they’re allowed to take center stage. While Mohebbi conveys strength and anguish in his role, it is the power of his voice that must be applauded. Nevertheless, his role and Clair’s seem somewhat neglected by the play’s creators, with the emphasis entirely on Judith. Fortunately, in that role, Burke proves impossible not to watch.

Casey Burke, Nathan Mohebbi, and Shannon Lee Clair

With Bluebeard’s Castle, Streisand has woven a tapestry threaded by counterpoints and contradictions – carnage contained in courtship, abhorrence amidst adoration, the sins of the child visited on the parent, a man’s blood staining the wedding sheets, a climax concluding on discord’s continuance. This renders a sustained sense of conflict throughout that is intrinsically intriguing.

Where the trouble lies is in the play’s resolution. Streisand has applied herself to what keeps Judith and Henry apart, but not how they come together. She has also overweighed her plot with unnecessary elements that only confuse the end.

Nathan Mohebbi and Casey Burke

Set designer Mark Guirguis, familiar to Odyssey audiences from Lear Redux, Birds of North America, and other shows, has provided the castle Judith must journey through, which, by the set’s profound sense of artificiality, paradoxically presents a minimalist labyrinth. Guirguis’s achievement was ably enhanced by the chiaroscuro quality of Leigh Allen’s atmospheric lighting design, but it was Sergey Rubalsky’s menacing sound score that tied all these elements together.

While arguably the destination it reaches is unsatisfying, the journey Streisand takes her audience on remains undeniably captivating.

At one point, Henry tells his bride his demons live in the castle, and perhaps, the warning of Bluebeard’s Castle is that our demons live wherever we allow them to.

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photos by Cooper Bates

Bluebeard’s Castle, A Medieval Musical Thriller
Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd
Fri* and Sat at 8; Sun at 2
80 minutes with no intermission
ends on November 23, 2025
for tickets (PWYC-$40), call 310.477.2055 ext. 2 or visit Odyssey Theatre
*Wine Night Fridays: Enjoy complimentary wine and snacks
after the show on the third Friday of every month

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