Photos by Brigitte Lacombe.

 

                                                                         By Ron Cohen

 

You can almost smell the blood lust, as well as the sexual one, as two celebrated combatants, Jeff Daniels and Michelle Williams, duke it out.

 

 

Jeff Daniels and Michelle Williams are portraying Ray and Una. The last time they saw each other was 15 years ago. That’s when Ray was 40 years old and Una was 12, and their sexual liaison -- or love affair -- ended when Ray was arrested and sent to prison for three years. Now, they are meeting in the break room of the dental-supply firm where Ray works. As you can imagine, it’s a pretty tense reunion.

 

 

Who was the victim, and who was the seducer? Is Una -- who has tracked down Ray after seeing his photo in a trade magazine -- seeking revenge or a rekindling of their relationship? Has Ray -- who has built a new life under a new name -- convinced himself that he was not simply a pedophile but caught up in circumstances he couldn’t control? Can he resist the sexual pull he still feels for Una?

 

 

These are the questions Scottish playwright David Harrower’s script relentlessly chews on as the play moves through its 80 intermission-less minutes. And the production, directed by Joe Mantello, keeps the confrontation at a high pitch from the get-go. Williams, an actress whose emotional accessibility seems bottomless, is a trembling mass of exposed trauma-wracked nerves. Daniels’ ever-deepening anguish is relieved only by fits of anger.

 

Harrower’s script obviously hits a nerve among critics and audiences. The original production in 2005 at the Edinburgh International Festival transferred to London’s West End where it won the Olivier Award for Best New Play. Since then, it has seen numerous productions and various translations, including the progenitor of this Broadway mounting. That was an Off-Broadway staging at Manhattan Theatre Club in 2007. It was directed by Mantello and starred Daniels, then sharing the stage with Alison Pill.

 

It can be questioned as to whether the appeal of the play, with its fairly graphic detailing of the pair‘s unacceptable love-making, is to our basic instincts. Or it could be seen as a cri de coeur against the particularly cruel twists of fate that have made impossible a love that could have well existed and flourished between these two people.

 

However, the overwrought nature of this production makes it difficult to feel empathy for Ray and Una. Even the litter which overflows out of the trash can and onto to the floor of Scott Pask’s otherwise sterile-looking set, seems overdone, even though we suspect it’s a metaphor for the messiness of their lives.

 

Blackbird may well prove riveting for many in the audience, with the sort of fascination Romans enjoyed when watching gladiators battle in the arena. For others, it may simply be an uncomfortable night at the theater, observing  two very talented actors tear away at both themselves as well as each other.

 

Playing at The Belasco Theatre

111 West 44^th Street

212 239-6200

Telecharge.com

Playing through June 11^th.