About
the Play:
Blackbird was the Winner the 2007 Lawrence Olivier Award
for Best New Play.
Blackbird
is an intense full-length drama by David Harrower. Fifteen
years ago Una and Ray had an illegal relationship. He moved to
another town. He changed his name. They haven't seen each other
since. Now she's found him. What does she want? Inspired by a true
story, Blackbird is a riveting play that raises
challenging questions about society, morality and how the past
irrevocably affects the present.
Blackbird is a taut two-character drama that tells the
story of a woman who finds and confronts the man who sexually abused
her. British vernacular for 'jailbird,' Blackbird is
a real-time account of the awkward reunion of Ray and Una, 15 years
down the road from sexual abuse that occurred when Ray was 40 and Una
was 12. Ray, fifty-six, after a three-year prison term and subsequent
hardships, assumed a new name, moved on to a new city and took up a
new job. He has made a new life for himself, thinking that he could
no longer be found. Una, twenty-seven, grew up a whispered-about
outcast and has thought of nothing else. She sees the picture of him
in a trade journal and shows up unannounced at his workplace full of
rage, curiosity, attraction, resentment and questions. She is looking
for answers not vengeance. Nevertheless, the consequences are
shattering. Blackbird is a hauntingly poetic play,
by one of Scotland's most notable playwrights, that will challenge
audience members to question their perceptions.
Blackbird premiered in 2005 at the King's Theatre during
the Edinburgh International Festival, then transferred to the Albery
Theatre in London in 2006 and won the Olivier Award for Best New
Play. It opened at the Manhattan Theater Club (MTC) off-Broadway in
New York City in 2007, and was revived on Broadway at the Belasco
Theatre in 2016. It received critical praise and was a 2017 Tony
nominee for Best Revival of a Play. Blackbird continues to be
performed regularly across the world.
Cast: 1 woman, 1 man
What people say:
"…Blackbird is
theatre at its most elemental: one man, one woman, one set and a
head-to-head confrontation, about events long past, that occurs in
real time." — New York Times
"Harrower's drama positively
explodes with unresolved, and possibly irresolvable, concerns … his
brooding ambiguity and his dry, resonating poetry culminate in one of
the most daring new plays of recent years." — Sunday
Herald (Glasgow)
"The gifted David Harrower's
intense Blackbird promises to be the most
powerful drama of the season … masterly, mesmerizing …
extraordinary … a miracle." — New York Times
"Four stars! This haunting,
powerful, incendiary work is the sort of daring theater far too
absent from our stages these days." — New York Post
"A provocative, shocking and
worthwhile new play. Playwright David Harrower is
definitely a name to watch." — New York Daily News
"A fascinating and unnerving
ninety-minute cat-and-mouse tale of revenge and sexual intrigue, with
genuine theatricality and undeniable shock value." —
Associated Press
"It's a wonderfully engaging
intellectual conflagration with a very slow burn…a dark and
beguiling play which stays with you … a remarkable play."
— CurtainUp
"An Ibsenite inquiry into the
past … psychological insight, creation of characters and nice
sociological detail … Poignant." — Evening
Standard (London)
About the Playwright:
David Harrower is a Scottish playwright. Born and brought
up in Edinburgh, he now lives and writes in Glasgow. The author of
seven original plays, plus numerous adaptations, he is often called
the most talented Scottish playwright of his generation.