BLACKBIRD To 3 October.

Salisbury

BLACKBIRD
by David Harrower.

Salisbury Playhouse (Salberg Studio) To 3 October 2009.
Mon-Sat 7.45 pm Mat Sat 2.45 pm
Post Show Discussion 29 Sept.
Runs 1hr 20min No interval.

Tickets: 01722 320333.
www.salisburyplayhouse.com
Review: Mark Courtice 21st September.

“Take these broken wings and learn to fly” ?
Originally, as a big-bucks Edinburgh Festival commission, this play took 2 hours - a recent studio version 1 hour 45 minutes. Tellingly, Philip Wilson's pacey and intense production comes in at 1 hour 20. The timing's terrific; speeches tumble across each other, pauses are never indulgent. It's dramatic, but avoids melodrama.

16 years ago, when he was 41 and she 12, Ray had a sexual relationship with Una, which ended in a failed attempt to flee abroad. Despite being clear - sometimes graphically - about what happened, this isn't a prurient paedophilia piece; it's much more complicated and satisfactory than that.

Ray has done 4 years, changed his name and rebuilt a shaky sort of life, when Una happens on his place of work and there confronts him for the first time since they parted at a B and B in Tynemouth.

She needs to find out some of the truth (psychological as well as actual) of what happened during their relationship, and in a sort of tough poetry - these are not articulate people - they explore the harm done to them then and since.

David Fielder's Ray is precisely observed, equivocal, a real character. There's a moment when he acknowledges the cheap clothes he now wears and in three devasted words we understand the change from the natty person who could mend things that he was to the shambling, fidgeting husk we see on stage.

Jo Herbert's Una is also very well done. She is frenetic and shattered by turns, as the relationship on stage slips in and out of her control. It's when, with a heart-rending mixture of bravado and desperation, she describes her present day life we realise how much damage not only Ray, but family, social workers and the law have done to her.

Set in a rubbish-strewn staff canteen, this intensely personal bubble of time and place could be punctured at any time as factory life goes on through the shaded windows upstage. The costumes help physically exact performances - her dress vibrant red and black, as are the biros in his top pocket.

Ray: David Fielder.
Una: Jo Herbert.

Directo/Designer: Philip Wilson.
Lighting: Dave Marsh.
Sound: Alex Twiselton.
Fight director: Paul Benzing.
Assistant director: Louise Hill.

2009-09-23 17:29:05