Blackbird

This show has now closed, click here for a listing of current and future London shows

Play Closed 13 May 2006

Albery Theatre St Martin's Lane, London

David Harrower's thought-provoking and explosive new play Blackbird is directed by the legendary Peter Stein and stars Roger Allam and Jodhi May.

Ray, 56, is confronted with his past when Una, 27, arrives unannounced at his office. Guilt, anger and raw emotions are running high as they recollect the passionate love affair they had 15 years earlier. Blackbird deals with a topical subject sensitively without any moral judgements, yet never shies away from presenting you with the brutal and shattering truth of an abandoned and unconventional love.

Blackbird was the most talked about, critically acclaimed production of the 2005 Edinburgh International Festival.

"Peter Stein's masterly production... a riveting study in sexual obsession" The Guardian

"In Blackbird at the Albery Theatre, Jodhi May and Roger Allam circle each other in a two-hour acting masterclass, challenging the audience to expand their definition of love and interrogate ethical boundaries. It's a new play by the Scottish writer David Harrower, premiered at the Edinburgh Festival last year in this production by the great German director Peter Stein. It is formidably good... At the end, there are not one but two coups de theatre; both Stein's innovations." The Sunday Telegraph

"A shattering play. It is the most powerful, dramatic two-hander since David Mamet's Oleanna" Daily Telegraph

"That much maligned term 'director’s theatre' is on thrilling view in the German director Peter Stein's production of Scotsman David Harrower's play, a sensation last summer at the Edinburgh International Festival... Though the story might sound both hot-topic overfamiliar and emotionally cheap — a woman, 15 years after the fact, seeks out the man, now 56, who bedded her when she was 12 — Stein pushes the text to the limits of ready moralising and well beyond." The Sunday Times

"Extraordinary performances" The Independent

"Blackbird's coolness is its strength, allowing an audience to believe both that the man is well-intentioned and that he's an abuser; that the girl's life has been ruined and that she's a predator... There is outstanding acting from Jodhi May, who drapes herself to suggest both sullen child and languorous partner, and from the great Roger Allam, who, his shoulders gently sagging, moves like a man who can't slough off a weight." The Observer

"This is a seriously thought-provoking piece, raising questions about people's responsibility and emotional instability at different ages... David Harrower's dialogue hovers between naturalistic and stylised fractured sentences and Peter Stein treats it like a musical score, with clearly shaped movements, very distinct swings in mood and pacing... certainly worth seeing." The Independent on Sunday