BLACKBIRD

BLACKBIRD

Chelmsford Theatre Workshop at the Old Court Theatre

14.03.13

Historic child abuse is one of the big stories of 2013. But David Harrower's compelling drama is a world away from high-profile television stars and music teachers.

We are in a soul-less staff room on an industrial estate, beautifully realised in the convincing set design. Into this harsh neon hell comes Una, to confront Ray, whom she last saw fifteen years ago when she was twelve. There are things he has to know, things she has to understand.

In this powerful production, directed by Mike and Sara Nower, the audience is, sometimes uncomfortably, a fly on the wall, as these strangers relive their little secret, sharing it all over again in a different squalor, in another distant town. Hard to watch, hard to look away as the carapace that enables them to live their lives is stripped mercilessly away.

Two very impressive performances from Richard Baylis, nervous, defeated, clinging insecurely to his new life, and Kat Hempstead, cooler at first, but intensely moving later, remembering her shameless, stupid crush and the death of her father.

Their uneasy dialogue, inarticulate, impassioned, is well caught, with telling moments of silence and stillness, though I might have traded some detail for an even more naturalistic overlap. This huge impersonal space has little sense of claustrophobia, but the ending is superbly realised: he must flee to his uncertain future, she has failed, despite feverish promiscuity, to find love with anyone else, and is condemned to stay imprisoned in her past.

But what if they had escaped the slippery slope from barbecue to park to seedy B&B, before the senseless elopement to the ferry port. Say her parents never knew, the police were never involved. Would she now be seeking redress and retribution from "Peter", her historic abuser ? Or would she still try to rekindle the love affair, rewrite the sad story of lives blighted ?

BLACKBIRD

BLACKBIRD

Mercury Theatre Studio, Colchester

Pilot Theatre with York Theatre Royal

23.11.2011

for The Public Reviews

The discomfort is the point. We're in a staff room on some anonymous industrial estate. It's a tip – as rank and messy as the lives and loves of the two people who seem almost trapped inside it, under the harsh glare of the strip lights.

They are a man nearing retirement – convinced he'll die at sixty – and a woman in her twenties, who's driven some distance to seek this confrontation, a ghost from his past.

As they talk – and Harrower's dialogue is incredibly realistic, with unfinished phrases, loops and overlaps – we learn of their shared past – an "illegal relationship" when she was twelve and he was in his forties. We feel uncomfortable, eavesdropping on their raw, brutal exchanges, constantly wrong-footed by each new twist, each fresh revelation.

He has moved on, or so he thinks. Paid the price, changed his name, found a hard-won career. She has stayed in the same house, braving the stares and the memories. But it eventually becomes clear that both of them are trapped in the past, and his choice, when it comes, is violent and shocking.

In extended monologues, we follow them back through her therapy letters, never sent, his letter of explanation, and recollections of the barbecue where they met, the codes, the car, the park, to that night in Tynemouth when their shared fantasy falls apart as the clock strikes midnight.

The play's seventy minutes hold several surprises, the last – no spoilers here – a simple piece of staging which is painfully potent. But it is the characters that stay with us, both of them acted – by George Costigan and Charlie Covell – with searing honesty, and a little humour amongst the darkness. The dialogue is often electric, powerful in its inarticulacy.

Director Katie Posner wisely lets the words do the work, trusting her players to run with the moments. Peter is nervous, defensive, his eyes itchy, his clothes crumpled. Una is angry, fretful, trembling and tense. Just before the end, we see a hint of what they lost all those years ago, as they share desperate laughter and childish fun.

And we can't help wondering, as we debate the rights and wrongs, the truth and the blame, what will happen to them now, these two vulnerable people whose space we've invaded for a crucial, uncomfortable hour.

This brilliant piece of theatre – film or television just wouldn't do – was first seen in Edinburgh in 2005. This production began its small tour in York, and will end in Exeter next week.

this piece first appeared on The Public Reviews