To call David Harrower’s Blackbird a bare bones play is nearly an understatement. It’s stripped down in almost every way that comprises a work of drama: two actors, a man (Ray) and a woman (Una), interact in sentences that more resembles a hail of verbal bullets than human thoughts – they stop and start, they fragment and halt. When you read it on a page, it’s almost ambiguous; it could be either be genius or drivel. What makes it sing is that it doesn’t merely stay on the page.

“He captures the way people speak when they aren’t in full control, when they are inarticulate, or their heart’s going to jump into their mouths,” says Kristina Watt, who plays Una. “They don’t finish sentences, their verb tenses are all over the place. Most of the play is unfinished thoughts unless,” here she pauses, “they just fly open.”

I want to say as little as possible about the nature of this play (directed by Mary Ellis), but feel that it’s appropriate to warn you a little: It’s uncomfortable – unflinchingly, vastly uncomfortable in wielding a theme that will certainly provoke. All I’ll say is that the two leads first met while Ray was middle-aged and Una twelve. John Koensgen, who plays Ray, is quick to get past this. “It’s more about the human condition than it is about an issue.” He reminds me, “It’s not a play ‘about’ something… it’s not an ‘issue’ play, but a play of complexities.”

Harrower sounds like that rare, right kind of perfect playwright who can simply create an event and its ramifications without moralizing. He doesn’t condemn, says Koensgen, but he’s equally unafraid to pull any punches about it.

As far as the actors’ roles are concerned, “We’re not going inside… a story of abuse,” states Watt. “I don’t really think that’s the story.” And judging by the synopsis, she’s right: Una seeks out Ray not out of vengeance or regret, but out of the need to resolve what is essentially a destructive, fragmented love story. And the play continues to evolve from there, says Koensgen. “It just starts turning and turning and just keeps going that way. It’s not that there are plot twists, but it’s the human twists the script goes through.”

As appeared in the Ottawa XPress – Sept 09, 2010
http://www.ottawaxpress.ca/stage/stage.aspx?iIDArticle=20434