Blackbird

A jewel of a two-hander, Blackbird by Scotland’s David Harrower made its mark around the world after its debut at the Edinburgh Festival in 2005.  It’s a revelatory showdown between Una and Ray.  She has tracked him down fifteen years after their brief relationship, back when he was 40 and she just 12 years old. 

From that first moment of re-union, in the messy staff room of where Ray has worked since his imprisonment, Blackbird leaps and flips through her anger, curiosity, abandonment and lost love ... and through his guilt, fear, affection and memory of lost passion. This then is no text book case of paedophiliac abuse. 

For the Sydney Fringe, up one end of a warehouse space, director Andrew Langcake works to deliver Harrower’s quick beats and mood changes, through that complexity of conflicting emotions, current and remembered. You can see the gear changes even when this cast drops the urgency and intensity required to drive them and give them full life. 

Eleanor Ryan though is impressive as Una, opening to the audience the pain of her loss and humiliation, with her foul-mouthed regret at being sexualised so young.  In accent and local truth, she also skilfully places us in Glasgow.  William Jordan plays the mumbling, middle-aged uncertainty of Ray, flashing occasionally with anger, but it’s a more monotonal performance, less revealing.

Luckily Harrower’s masterly theatricalities continues to grab us by throat, as he plunges the room into darkness or has this lost duo explode into trashing the room. By end, when Una claws Ray for a revival of their passion and a mysterious newcomer walks through the door, it’s strong theatre.

Martin Portus