Blackbird: A Play

David Harrower's plays include Knives in Hens, Kill the Old, Torture Their Young, Presence, and Dark Earth. Blackbird was shortlisted for the Saltire Society Book of the Year Award and won the 2007 Lawrence Olivier Award for Best New Play.

Winner of the 2007 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play

 

Fifteen years ago, Una and Ray had a relationship. They haven't set eyes on each other since. Now she's found him again.

 

Blackbird was commissioned by the Edinburgh International Festival and premiered at the King's Theatre, Edinburgh, in August 2005. The production transferred to the Albery Theatre, London, in February 2006, and went on to open at the Manhattan Theater Club, New York City, in April 2007.

“A man and his younger girlfriend drive to a beach town and have sex. He craves a smoke afterward; she craves candy. He climbs into his car and disappears. Abandoned in the remote town, she searches for him on foot until it becomes late, much later than she is accustomed to. ‘Late’ for her is 10 p.m. That is because she is 12 years old. Mercifully, these events take place 15 years before the confrontation that comprises David Harrower’s bruising . . . drama Blackbird . . . But those intervening years have done little to quash the agonies residing within the two broken figures on display. Mr. Harrower nudges his story toward any number of familiar paths—the revenge drama, the big-moment apologia, the cathartic reconciliation. But Blackbird invariably veers away from these resolutions in favor of far more complicated emotions.”—Eric Grode, The New York Sun 

"Blackbird is a drama that mixes guilt, memory and desire into the most potent of theatrical cocktails."—Daily Telegraph

 

"Neither condoning nor condemning, Harrower has produced a fine, thought-provoking piece on a taboo subject."—Independent