It is November 16th, 1932. The Depression is at its greatest, and vaudeville – the roaring heartbeat of the '20s – has ceased to beat. Isaac Solomon Loew, a Jewish Mississippian, performs on Broadway as Blueberry, a happy-go-lucky Pierrot. Wrestling with guilts of times bygone, he frequently flees from his pain not only into performance, but also into sex. His increasingly addictive escapes have finally lost him his wife, at the same times as he loses his employment. He enters his dressing-room for the last time; and as he pours his heart out to the audience, shedding his painted mask, he wrestles with his memories, mistakes and misdeeds – either to their conclusion, or his own.

​

Cry, Blueberry is not, however, a tale of gloom and woe. Blueberry is a trumpeter of life, whose dreams fly above storms and tears; and his twisting, turning, heartfelt and honest-to-God journey – through saloons, towns, cities, brothels, circuses, churches, synagogues, theatres and more – touches on themes including racial injustice, the accountability of bystanders, the profundity of clowning and the ethics of repentance and forgiveness. Drawing from his own experiences, Richard Canal's personal and magical-realist play wipes off the make-up to reveal the face of himself, his persona and the United States' first decades into the 20th century – presenting a poetic, enchanting perspective on the nature of encounters and escapes; on how people detach and isolate themselves from pain and painful truths; and on gladness, sadness and everything in between.

​

It premiered at the Cockpit in London, UK for the 2017 Camden Fringe; returned for a sell-out complimentary week-long run there (garnering 450 audience members and standing ovations) in January 2018; and is due to be performed at the Otherplace in Brighton, UK for the Fringe in May, and at the Gothenburg Fringe, Sweden in August. (Its premier at the Edinburgh Fringe is, of course, in the works!)