This afternoon, I say David Harrower's play Blackbird at the Belasco Theatre. Harrower wrote the piece more than a decade ago, but it has been done all over the place, and for obvious reasons: small cast, simple set, provocative subject matter.
The play follows Ray (played by Jeff Daniels) and Una (played by Michelle Williams), who meet in an office. Fifteen years earlier, the two had a sexual affair. At the time, she was twelve.
Boom.
But why is the play called Blackbird? Is it the bird-like calls Una made for Ray some fifteen years ago? Or the fact that the play keeps changing its perspective, looking at the same situation from different angles, similar to the Wallace Stevens poem "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird"?
In the spirit of Wallace Stevens, I offer the following reflection:
I
Among twenty audience members,
The only thing they agreed upon
Was that the title of the play was Blackbird.
II
I was of three minds,
Like three cats
That had just eaten three blackbirds.
III
The blackbird whirled in the sea of trash.
It was a small part of the tragedy.
IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird,
Now that's just sick.
V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of Una's monologue
Or the beauty of her innuendoes,
The blackbird calling
Or just after.
VI
Figures walked past the long windows,
Appearing in sheets of glass.
The shadows of the coworkers
Crossed it, to and fro.
The blackbird
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable play.
VII
O thin men of Scotland,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the table
In the company break room?
VIII
I heard noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I heard, too,
That a blackbird might have been involved
In what I heard.
IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of the set turning in circles.
X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in florescent light,
Even the bawds of cacophony
Would cry out in surprise.
XI
He drove across some unnamed state
In an easily identifiable car.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his automobile
For blackbirds.
XII
The audience is gasping.
The blackbird must be flying.
XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was raining
And it was going to rain.
The blackbird sat
In the balcony.
