Glass. Kill. Bluebeard. Imp.
Royal Court Theatre, London

IN EACH of these four short pieces, Caryl Churchill suggests that myth, fairy tale, religion and Shakespeare are all just narratives we choose to believe in — or not.

In opener Glass, a girl befriends a boy whose father is abusive. Their friendship allows him to escape but leaves Rebekah Murrell’s poignantly played Glass Girl fractured and broken.

Kill has the gods retelling and distilling the stories of the House of Atreus, boiling them down into an absurd and horrific violent essence, while in Bluebeard’s Friends, four dinner-party guests express their disbelief that their great friend, Bluebeard, can have murdered multiple wives.