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Inside the harrowing Off-Central drama ‘Blackbird’
Ray and Una had a secret, three-month sexual dalliance. He was 40 years old. She was 12.
David Harrower’s Blackbird, onstage now at the Off-Central, is very clear on what this was: Sexual abuse of a child.
It’s 15 years later. The play unfolds in the employee break room of the company where Ray is working. After serving a six-year prison term, he’s changed his name and tried oh-so-hard to rebuild his life.
Somehow, Una – now 27 – has discovered him, and she’s come to confront her abuser.
“Not only is the story we’re telling emotionally exhausting, this play is technically very difficult as well,” says actress Mackenzie Aaryn, who plays Una. “It really has been very tiring.”
Harrower’s rat-a-tat dialogue requires Aaryn and Ward Smith, playing Ray, to interrupt and talk over each other from start to finish. They lock eyes at the beginning and rarely look away.
And the subject matter? After every performance, Aaryn says she is “Shaky, a little sick to my stomach, and it usually takes me a full hour to come down from that feeling.
“Emotionally, I understand the difference between myself and Una. I’m not super what people call method – in quotes – obviously you draw from your life, what you can, and that brings its own complexity of emotions. I think I’m a compartmentalizer, so I say ‘This is the time I’m doing the work’ and ‘This is the time I’m going to let it go.’”
Blackbird doesn’t position Ray or Una as particularly sympathetic characters. There are many nuances to the story, and even though young Una was a willing participant, it becomes clear that Ray was – and is? – purely a predator.
Smith, the Off-Central’s artistic and executive director, engaged the Suncoast Center as a community partner. The organization works with sexual assault victims. A representative is in the theater every night, and briefly speaks to the audience.
For the actors, it’s all been a learning experience. “This subject – the survivors, what they go through – doesn’t get enough ventilation,” says Smith. “And I learned, and it disgusts me as a male, that every woman can relate to this show. In some way or other.
“And guys can’t. Maybe there’s guilt – ‘Jeez, did I ever catcall? Did I ever try a little grab-ass at work? Did I ever say hey, you look nice today and mean something else by it?’ My character says ‘I read those books and I thought about my life to see if I was like one of those guys.’
“With these people, they think it’s OK. They try to justify their behavior: ‘I’m not like all the other weirdos. This just happened.’ And she says ‘It doesn’t make a difference. It still f—ing happened.’”
During the course of the characters’ intense and uncomfortable two-way conversation, Una outlines what happened the night Ray abandoned her in a riverside motel room – he went out for cigarettes and never returned – and its aftermath.
It’s a tour-de-force – a monologue that takes up nine consecutive pages in the Blackbird script – and Aaryn’s performance makes the case for Una as a pitiable victim suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.
At the Off-Central, Aaryn previously appeared in Into the Night and Ghosts Stories From Yellowstone.
Smith can’t say enough about his co-star. “Out of all the young artists I’ve had the chance to work with, here and in other places, she’s the real deal. She’s the next Roxanne Fay.”
Says Aaryn: “Having sex with a 40-year-old man was not the most disgusting thing that happened to Una. The most disgusting thing was how she was treated after, and the shame she was put through for something that was not her fault. It is not a child’s fault, in any way, ever.
“A woman from the Suncoast Center told me it’s amazing how many young victims tell me ‘I’ve been grounded because of this.’ Or ‘my parents hate me now because of this.’ I think that’s what begins to shatter people, or at least Una – she’s completely lost herself to this.”
Find showtimes and tickets for Blackbird here.
