Review: San Francisco - "Blackbird"
(c) TalkinBroadway.com
May 10, 2007
By Richard Connema
"Blackbird" premiered in London, running two hours with a melodramatic ending. It won the Olivier Award for best new play in 2006. It has been cut to 80 minutes for the San Francisco Bay Area audiences. It's hard to keep from feeling, especially in the opening fifteen minutes, that you are watching a David Mamet play. The two characters use pared down and fractured speech patterns. There is barely a complete sentence at the beginning of the drama. It is a provocative play full of tension. Even the little things are interesting, such as Ray's insistence that the door remain ajar throughout the whole confrontation, since he needs an escape route. The basic plot is that Una has finally tracked Ray down, years after the then 41-year-old man impregnated her when she was 12. Una was very much in love with the middle-aged man. It was "rape with consent," some would say. Ray was sent to prison and under a new name has created a new life with a slightly older woman. Una was also something of a prisoner since the affair was highly publicized and her mother refused to move from the neighborhood where the neighbors called Una a whore. Steven Culp ("Angels in America" and Rex Van De Kamp on television's "Desperate Housewives") and Jessi Campbell (New York "Inky" and "Victoria Martin: Math Team Queen") manage to sustain their roles and keep the audience interested throughout the play. Culp plays the role with an excellent jumpy defensiveness. You can see Ray is psychically scarred by his prison time. Jessi Campbell gives a wonderful performance as a person who has been deeply hurt from the sexual experience. She wants closure from the man who took advantage of her teenage crush. Portia Juliette (alternating with Hannah Rose Kornfield) has a small but pivotal role at the end of the performance that will get the audience thinking. Robert Brill's realistic set is a lunchroom in a warehouse where Ray works; there are vending machines and the set is littered with food wrappers about the tables and floor. The background is an elongated frosted glass window behind which we see figures moving and sometimes lurking to listen to the conversation. The florescent lighting by Russell H. Champa makes the room bright as a hospital operating room. "Blackbird"runs through May 27th at the American Conservatory Theatre, 415 Geary Street, San Francisco. For tickets 415-749-2228 or online at act-sf.org. A.C.T.'s final production of the current season will be Moliere's "The Imaginary Invalid" opening on June 7th and running through July 8th. |
DISCLAIMER: This site is a Steven Culp fan site and is not affiliated with Steven Culp, his family or any of his representatives.
Unless otherwise noted, all captures were made by me from videos from various sources. All shows and photos belong to their respective owners.
NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT INTENDED!
© 2004-2022 SConTV.com and Steven-Culp.com
Unless otherwise noted, all captures were made by me from videos from various sources. All shows and photos belong to their respective owners.
NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT INTENDED!
© 2004-2022 SConTV.com and Steven-Culp.com