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ARTS AND CULTURE

In a Minor Key

Blackbird shows the aftermath of one man's sexual encounter with a young girl.

By J. Cooper Robb

Add Comment | Comments: 0 | Posted Feb. 18, 2009

A song of sexpence: Pearce Bunting plays Peter alongside Julianna Zinkel's Una.

David Harrower's controversial drama Blackbird is not for the timid. Told in real time, Harrower's stunning play may be clean and streamlined, but the anguished love story he relates is anything but tidy.

The play takes place in the break room of a dental manufacturing company. It's a depressing area with garbage everywhere (Matt Saunders' institutional set and Paul Moffitt's stark lighting are spectacular). The room's only occupants are Peter (Pearce Bunting) and Una (Julianna Zinkel). Fifteen years earlier, the pair had a three-month sexual relationship. At the time, he was 41. She was 12.

After seeing Peter in a magazine ad, Una has tracked him to his workplace. She's initially confrontational, yelling at Peter that she wants to "rip his eyes out."

But as the play progresses, complicated details of the initial encounter are revealed. Peter was invited to the family's house for a barbecue. Una developed a crush on him, and instead of discouraging her, he welcomed the attention. Their sexual encounter happened with frightening ease.

Peter calls his actions "the stupidest mistake I ever made," but he also deflects responsibility, telling Una, "You weren't like other children." (The judge at the subsequent trial said she had "adult yearnings.")

The sex is recalled in graphic detail, but the intercourse between a man and a minor isn't what makes Blackbird so shocking. Instead, it's what happens in the present, when the depth of their relationship is revealed.

Director Joe Canuso manages the action with compassion and insight, and the production soars on intelligent performances by Zinkel and Bunting.

Blackbird
Through March 1.
$15-$30.
Plays and Players Theater,
1714 Delancey St.
215.218.4022.
www.theatreexile.org

Zinkel portrays Una as woman intensely aware of her own body. Her movements are neither sensual nor seductive, yet we can't take our eyes off her.

Peter, on the other hand, is a timid man seemingly afraid of his own body. We're troubled by Peter's past actions, but not by the man himself. Bunting's disarming performance powerfully communicates the inner turmoil of someone who regrets his past but is incapable of dismissing it.

Blackbird isn't the first play to investigate child molestation, and like the pedophile in Paula Vogel's How I Learned to Drive, Peter isn't easily categorized. Likewise, Una's not the stereotypical victim.

Short on easy answers and simple explanations, this riveting and unforgettable play shows us two damaged people who are forever connected by ghosts that refuse to die.