[ back ]
Two actors made for 'Blackbird'
(by Herb Hammer - January 29, 2009)
THEATER, BY HERB HAMMER
Two actors made for 'Blackbird'
Where do we go from here? "Blackbird," by Scottish playwright David Harrower, delivers a gripping, fast-paced, in-your-face drama that leaves you paralyzed.
Certainly not for the squeamish, "Blackbird," a 75-minute one-act, can't help but keep you glued to your seat, even after the play abruptly ends.
While plowing through the messed-up lives of the play's two protagonists may leave you shivering, the astonishing performances through the gut-wrenching dialogue may drive you to cheers.
Dobama Theatre is performing "Blackbird" at the Cleveland Play House, the theater's temporary home while a new Lee Road Dobama Theatre is being constructed.
"Blackbird" is full of surprises. Line after line, speech after speech becomes one shock after another. But there's nothing wrong with telling it like it is. When you boil it all down to its bare bones, you're left with one thing: sexual abuse. He was 40. She only 12. He serves three years in prison and moves on to a new life, a new city. She, well, she's in a bad way.
Now, it's a decade later. Una, the girl, now in her 20s, finds him. A picture in a trade magazine leads her to the place where he works. They're in the lunchroom, the messiest lunchroom in the world.
Their speeches overlap. She's angry. He just wants her to go away. From this point, the conflict immediately rises to epic proportions and continues through the entire play.
There is a break here and there. We learn she had a childish crush on him he couldn't break free from. But then she tells the story about the night, the night he drove her far off to a motel then, afterwards, left her there.
Ray, the man, tells his part of the story and explains the desertion. The police pick him up, and that's it, or is it?
The intense and exhausting confrontation leaks out much of the story of Una's shattered life.
Her parents never left the neighborhood. They blamed her. She was ridiculed by other children. Though she claims she now has a job, she has never been the same, or has she?
When she spills out her story of that awful night, she becomes 12 years old again. Una is stuck in time.
And for Ray, it hasn't been easy. Now in his 50s with a new life, he is still conflicted.
While it was abuse, both Ray and Una have trouble with the word. We may be witness to a love story without an end. Someone else will have to sort that out.
The play couldn't have been done better. Director Scott Plate forces the action, keeping his two actors at a fever pitch.
Twenty-one-year-old Alyssa Weldon becomes Una. You can't imagine her any other way. She's quite amazing.
As for Ray, Joel Hammer has never been better. I should know. He dives into his character and never lets go. You can't imagine either one of them being anybody but Ray and Una.
"Blackbird," among stiff competition, won the Laurence Olivier Award for best new play in 2006, leaving the competition far behind.
See this play. This is what theater is all about.
As for the title, that's another story for another time.
For information and tickets, call (216) 932-3396.
[ back ]
