Blackbird

Show: Blackbird Author: David Harrower Director: Dean Schulze Featuring: Eliot McCann, Laura Vertigan Company: Blak Yak Theatre Venue: Subiaco Arts Centre, Studio Space When: Friday 20 November 2009 Venue: Subiaco Theatre Centre Season Dates: Nov 19, 20, 21, 26, 27, Dec 3, 4 and 5 Price: $19.00 full, $15.00 conc., Bookings through BOCS 9484 1133 or www.bocsticketing.com.au TOPICAL BACKDROP AND SUBTLETY MAKE THIS A MUST SEE "Paedophile." What images does the word evoke? For many people, even the mere mention of the word will raise the hackles. Others will picture a cavalcade of seemingly endless television stories. Stories featuring near-lawless suburban families, brandishing virtual torches and pitchforks. Mobs single-mindedly possessed of a single objective: to run the offenders out of town by morning, by any means. And it is easy to get caught up in the mob mentality. After all, these are crimes against children. The innocent. But what of due process of law? How can we justify double standards where murderers are eventually able to to reintegrate into society once they have "done their time," yet paedophiles, no matter the circumstance of their crime, can never be allowed back into the fold? These are questions that are at the core of this rich play. It must be said: Blackbird is an intensley difficult play. It is difficult for the actors to play, and it is difficult for the audience to watch. The baggage an audience brings to the subject continually threatens to overwhelm the text. Blackbird is a play where histrionics and physical invention can easily be temptations for the actor. And these are the traps that Dean Schulzes' direction avoids. Mr. Schulze has allowed the text of Blackbird to fly free and do the work its author intended -- to offer an understanding of this darkest of subjects at a basic, human level, free of the distortions of the lens of the media. It is a refreshing approach. Eliot McCann and Laura Vertigan's performances are solid and devoid of cliche. The author has supplied theatrical dialogue of rare quality in this play, and the cast have expertly handled it. It is a dialogue uncompromising in both its celebration of the rhythms, and the coarseness, of real speech. And it is this artful replication of the seeming mundanity of "everyday speech" that gives these characters their three-dimensionality. They do not seem to be actors. From the first, they seem simply to be two people trapped in a lifelong horror show caused by a moment of mutual temptation. With Blackbird, author David Harrower seeks to remove the distorting lens of the media, so as to look objectively at this difficult subject matter, and to ask a several intensely difficult questions about the nature of this crime. It provides no answers, but allows space for the audience member to make up their own mind, free of preconception, for once. And this freedom to consider alternative viewpoints is Harrower's greatest gift to those brave enough to take the journey.