A chat with the author of “Blackbird”

“BLACKBIRD“, David Harrower’s play about a man and a woman who meet to talk about an affair that took place 15 years earlier (when he was 40 and she was 12), has recently premiered on both American coasts, to critical acclaim. Mr Harrower, a Scottish author of five original plays and several edgy adaptations (including Pirandello’s “Six Characters Looking for an Author” and Chekhov’s ”Ivanov”), took the time to speak with Moreover on the phone from his home in Glasgow.

Listen here to the interview with David Harrower.

Pittsburgh poetry

“AUGUST WILSON is America’s best playwright,” says my colleague here at Moreover. “I just love listening to his characters talk.” Arthur Miller? Too didactic. Tennessee Williams? Eugene O’Neill? Their plays haven’t aged well enough. But Wilson, a high-school dropout from Pittsburgh, left a legacy of ten plays (his “Pittsburgh Cycle”) before he died in 2005. Each play, set in a different decade of the 20th century, has a raw and honest poetry. My colleague reviewed “Radio Golf”, Wilson’s last play, in this week’s paper:

To describe the plays as telling the story of the American black experience is true, but it sounds too high-minded. Wilson had a golden ear for the cadence and humour of everyday speech, and the way his characters reveal themselves through language provides a pleasure unmatched on the American stage.

“Radio Golf”, which has been nominated for a Tony award for “Best Play”, may not be Wilson’s finest, but the chance to catch it on Broadway should be seized.

In good “Company”

Stephen Sondheim’s “Company” has a way of making its audience squirm. This is particularly true for anyone catching the musical on Broadway, where its honest take on married, middle-class New Yorkers often hits a bit too close to home. Still, buy yourself a ticket (and then make an appointment with your therapist): over three decades after its debut, this show feels as fresh as ever.

At its centre is a surprise birthday party for Robert, played by the wonderfully boyish Raul Esparza. A 35-year-old bachelor in a sea of married couples, he is the odd-man out, often observing the awkward imperfections of his friends’ marriages, and defending himself against efforts to get him hitched. A wary, beloved bystander, he is both alone and never alone. His friends fondly hound him–“Bo-bby”, they cry, they demand–to commit to one of his many girlfriends, yet they envy his independence. (Homosexual fans of the play have long-claimed Robert as a possibly-not heterosexual proxy for their own social place, but he is not in fact a gay character.)

How can you not like this guy?

After catching Jeff Daniels in the mesmerising play “Blackbird” last night, we decided to scope out some of the press he’s received since returning to the New York stage.  We came across this serviceable Q&A in New York magazine, which yielded the following gem:

Is there a difference between audiences at your theater and those in New York?
The midwestern audience dives in. They bought a ticket to see a play, and they’re committed to whatever it is we’re going to do: “Take me for a ride.” But reviews are so important in this town. You get a sense of the audience waiting to be told about what they just saw. And then when the reviews are raves, they can say, “Oh, that was a great play. I saw it in previews!” I want people to buy a ticket just for that play, just for that experience. I want the guy that loved Dumb and Dumber. I’ve got to turn him into a theatergoer.

As a regular theatre-goer in New York, I think Mr Daniels has a point. Few culturally savvy people here ever want to claim to have enjoyed something. New York intellectuals are often suspicious of visceral pleasure, as though it comes at the price of good taste.

“Blackbird” sings

CAN we talk a bit about Jeff Daniels? I just had the privilege of catching him in a very powerful two-person play last night called “Blackbird”. Written by David Harrower, a playwright better known in London (this was his New York debut), it is the story of a man and a woman who meet to talk about an affair that took place 15 years earlier, when he was 40 and she was 12. Set in an anodyne office space, the play runs through without intermission, ensuring the drama never hits a speed bump. Their unfolding revelations and competing perceptions remain gripping throughout–a rare feat for such a minimalist play.

Allison Pill puts in a strong performance as a woman made frail by time, maddened by the ways she has tried to make sense of her past. There are moments when she shakes like a leaf, teetering on awkwardly tawdry heels, as though she’s an over-grown child in her mother’s clothes. But then, now and then, something snaps and she yells, she breaks, she slams a door–all, seemingly, to keep from whimpering.

But this is Jeff Daniels’s show. Slumped over, Willy Loman-like in his cheap office clothes, he is a husky man bent by time. There is an everyman quality to Mr Daniels that has sometimes served him well, landing him parts in which he seems endearingly befuddled by life’s lottery. But often it keeps him underestimated and out of the spotlight. In his first play in New York since 1993 (he runs a theatre in Michigan), he is an awkward, shambling, stammering, poignant gift to the stage. His pain is there, but also his power, his magnetism.

“Blackbird” is only running through June 3rd. Try to catch it.

Spring Awakening / Theatre / New York

THIS new show grapples with the angst and sexual urgency of being a teenager. New territory this is not, yet “Spring Awakening” feels fresh. Based on Frank Wedekind’s scandalous 19th-century play, its characters come of age in Germany, buzzing with nascent sexual needs and riddled with questions about whether to obey authority or defy it.

Grey Gardens / Theatre / New York

ANYONE decrying the mediocrity of Broadway musicals must see “Grey Gardens”. The story comes from a cinéma vérité, 1975 documentary of the same name about two reclusive relatives of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis living in a dilapidated mansion in the Hamptons. The film tenderly showcases the eccentricities of this regally squalid pair—the elderly Edith “Big Edie” Ewing Bouvier Beale and her middle-aged daughter, Edith “Little Edie” Bouvier Beale. Fans of the documentary may doubt a leap to the stage. But somehow this adaptation retains much of the original’s charm, largely due to a remarkable performance from Christine Ebersole. As the mother in the first act and the daughter in the second, she gives voice to the mysterious aches of these two women.

The Year of Magical Thinking / Theatre / New York

JOAN Didion’s memoir, “The Year of Magical Thinking”, is a poignant and personal missive. Written after the death of her husband of nearly 40 years, John Gregory Dunne, the book is a testament to her grief, her amazing loss. Despite the private nature of her subject—and its inherent solipsism—Ms Didion’s nuanced prose drew readers into her suffering.