Blackbird

‘Blackbird’ by Scottish playwright David Harrower is a controversial and disturbing, award-winning play. A US Marine, Toby Studebaker, who abducted a 12-year-old British girl after grooming over the Internet, inspired the story. With some trepidation, this play was first ‘tried out’ at the 2005 Edinburgh Festival, it was a huge success. The Blak Yak Theatre bravely brings performances of this one act play to the Subiaco Arts Centre Studio, 180 Hamersley Road, Subiaco. Shows start nightly at 7.30, until 5^th December.

       After a long search, attractive 28-year-old Una (Laura Vertigan) sees a photograph in a magazine of 56-year-old Ray (Eliot McCann), an old family friend that she hasn’t seen for about 15 years. Much to his horror, she decides to visit him at his work. When Una arrives a very apprehensive and shattered Ray, rapidly shows her into the pigsty that is his works staff canteen.

      Fifteen years earlier, Una and Ray had a three-month passionate relationship, which ended after they booked into a Northumbrian coastal bed and breakfast. This brief ‘holiday’ resulted in four years jail for Ray for paedophilia, and the collapse of Una’s secure world of friends and relatives. Now Ray has re-invented himself as Peter.

      What lies behind this reunion? Is Una seeking revenge? Some sort of closure to a horrendous relationship? Or possibly, to re-kindle what used to be there?

This searching play is like a game of ping-pong, you feel your allegiances change rapidly back and forth. One’s immediate reaction to this taboo subject is clearly ‘an older man’s disgusting lust for an innocent child’. Here, however, the playwright’s superbly constructed dialogue asks numerous divisive and thorny questions, putting the audience on a seesaw of hate, revulsion and then sympathetic understanding as he works through various scenarios.

Despite the beautiful way in which the writer handles the whole situation, it is still a tough, no punches pulled ride that leaves the audience uneasy and confused as for whom to feel sorry.

After having been an assistant university chaplain, Laura brought a great deal of social knowledge and understanding to the part of Una. Being the first night of the run, Laura was a little on edge to begin with, but as the play continued, her feelings came more naturally and her voice tones deepened with her anger. A very good solid performance. Eliot gave a very special performance as the confused, distraught ex-lover who has moved on, and wants no one in his new life to become involved in his past. Both actors had a strong chemistry bonding their performances. Daniella Palermo’s brief appearance near the end had the desired effect – well done.

Director Dean Schulze correctly went for the soft and simple approach, thus allowing the power of the script and situation to hold the audience’s attention.

I am not sure whether ‘enjoyable’ is quite the adjective to use, but this play was a competently tackled, difficult piece designed to make us all think. With 90 tense minutes of acting, this was an actor’s marathon, but the pace never faltered. Strongly recommended.