I've been reading D. H. Lawrence recently — Women in Love, from which the fine Ken Russell movie was made — and though I'm stunned by the intensity of the prose, I'm also exasperated by a certain repetitiveness in the subject matter.
Again and again, Lawrence asks us to observe a particular kind of oscillation in his characters' love lives: At first it appears that Ursula craves Birkin, moments later she despises him, a moment after that she's forgotten he exists and then a half-second later she's desperate for his touch. But do I really need to watch a hundred variations on this theme in chapter after chapter until I'm ready to scream, "All right, romance is a roller coaster; now could we please move on to some other sort of observation?!" Not that love/hate isn't interesting to a degree, but after Hermione nearly smashes in her lover Rupert's skull, did we also have to see Gerald try to strangle his lover Gudrun?
I was reminded of Lawrence when I saw David Harrower's Blackbird at Jobsite Theater. This tense, emotionally supercharged drama is excellently acted by Paul J. Potenza and Caitlin Eason, potently directed by Karla Hartley, perfectly situated by set designer Scott Cooper — and yet it doesn't seem to have much more to say than attraction and repulsion are dangerously near neighbors where lovers are concerned.
The fact that the lovers in question were once strictly illicit — he was 40 and she was 12 — only makes this focus more frustrating. Surely the reunion of the two, 15 years after their affair, has more to offer than the familiar emotional quick-change: spite to seductiveness, anger to lust, blame to confession, then back again to spite. Blackbird does make one claim that might have been daring if we hadn't already read Lolita and seen How I Learned to Drive — that is, in some cases, minors may be ignorant enough to solicit their own exploitation. But once we've grasped the idea that Una, at 12, had desires all her own, the play has nothing to show us but the old emotional to-and-fro. See Una be hurt. Now see her be vicious. Now see her break down. Now see her firm up.
The whole terrible subject of sexual abuse and its aftermath becomes subordinated to this exercise in affective fluctuation, and any hope that the story will lead to some sort of epiphany ultimately vanishes.
Still, Potenza and Eason are brilliantly successful at playing their busy parts, and if the text itself doesn't add up, the performances are deeply impressive. So I can recommend Blackbird to anyone who appreciates the art of performance. As for the art of dramatic writing — well, I prefer Paula Vogel any day.
Blackbird begins in the break room of a company that has something to do with dental supplies. Here a man named Peter, formerly known as Ray, confronts the young woman whom he victimized years before, and whom he hoped he would never see again. But Una found his picture in a trade magazine and wants a confrontation. Peter is frightened, even anguished: He spent time in prison for his role in the affair; now has a new name and job and partner, and is terrified at the thought that the past might come back at him, furious. But Una doesn't have closure on the relationship that wrecked her life — or so she claims — and she's not about to fade into history. So the two former lovers return to all the scenes of the crime, and we discover the events that led them to intimacy and then broke them apart. And we further discover what's still possible for Una and Peter — or, at least, what they still desire. And we're supposed to learn that the line between victim and perpetrator isn't always well defined.
Eason is splendid as Una. Looking into her face, you can still see the girl she once was: innocent, loving, misunderstood and lonely. In fact, she displays her innocence so convincingly that it's shocking when she suddenly becomes spiteful and mean, taunts Peter and threatens to do to his life what he did to hers. Potenza as Peter is also first class: The anguish with which he plays his first scenes is so pronounced, he seems capable of imploding into a bulbous, spineless mess; and when he speaks of the humiliations he suffered because of his crime, you can't help but feel them right along with him.
Director Hartley stages the play with brute authenticity, shying away from absolutely nothing, however explicit or politically incorrect. Designer Cooper's set is one of the play's best features: It's a realistic worker's lounge littered with bottles and wrappers, and sporting safety posters on the wall, a Coke machine and a "Think" sign.
I'm not quite as satisfied with Hartley's lighting. The device of having the stage darken during certain memory scenes and then come up brightly afterwards calls too much attention to itself, and is a distraction from an otherwise realistic presentation. All told, though, this is one of the best-designed of recent Jobsite shows.
In closing, a note about Blackbird's theme: I assume that we're supposed to leave the theater wondering who's the victim and who's the perpetrator in a relationship like Peter and Una's. But I don't ask this question: I say the 12-year-old, not having full powers of reason, is clearly the victim, and that's the end of the discussion. And I can't help but wonder: Isn't there a reactionary, even dangerous, attitude toward women in a play like Blackbird?
This article appears in Sep 17-23, 2008.