All Blood Runs Red
Leeds Playhouse

 
ALL BLOOD RUNS RED announces its intention in its opening moments. It’s “a show about what is and is not forgotten,” as performer and co-writer Morgan Bailey informs the audience.
 
The one-man show is, on face value, a biographical drama about Eugene Bullard, whose extraordinary life intersected with many historical moments. A boxer, nightclub owner and one of the first African-American fighter pilots — the play’s title is taken from a slogan he painted on his plane — he’s nonetheless been erased from most cultural memories.
 
Adopting Jean-Luc Godard’s tenet that a story should have “a beginning, a middle, and an end, but not necessarily in that order,” the play jumps back and forth in time. The flashbacks are interwoven with Bailey’s own experience as a black actor in Paris, which is where Bullard made his name. It’s here that he makes a film pitch about Bullard’s life, with the play adopting many filmic techniques. 
 
The approach suits Imitating the Dog’s multimedia style. Images are projected onto a screen and onto objects that Bailey holds — the open pages of a book, or a restaurant menu — which allow multiple scenes to play out at once. The repeated use of the cinematic whiteout, accompanied by James Hamilton’s arresting sound design, also serves as a powerful metaphor for erasure.
 
Bailey holds the weight of the play’s theme with captivating lightness. Although still settling into the role — being fed the occasional line — he switches believably between characters and accents, balancing pathos with comedy. This is concentrated at the play’s climax when he delivers multiple versions of the same line with devastating effect.
 
The play’s multilayered approach has an ambition that it almost achieves. Its narrative looseness does, however, create moments of disorientation in which Bullard remains a shadowy character. Yet in remaining tantalisingly out of reach, Bailey and artistic director Andrew Quick have made a powerful, if flawed, comment about race, identity, and forgotten history.
 
On tour until March 14. For venues and tickets see: imitatingthedog.co.uk