Blackbird overwhelms with dramatic intensity

 By Joanna Brady

Be prepared to have the breath knocked out of you. “Blackbird,” which took the Olivier Award in London for best new play in 2007, will be staged at the Studios of Key West for three nights only. You won’t want to miss this play. It’s a powerful work that is riveting and compelling.

This production is masterfully performed by Jessica Miano Kruel in the demanding role of Una, and Mike Mulligan, a familiar face in Key West as Ray. These two astonishing talents face off right from the get-go and manage to keep the mélange of hostility, blame, remorse, tension, and—yes, love—shaken up like a can of soda throughout the entire performance.

Kudos to Dennis Zacek, the director who orchestrates the exchanges between the two major performers with dexterity and a keen sense of timing and pace.

Blackbird will recall Nabokov’s Lolita and Paula Vogel’s How I learned to drive. The subject matter of criminal love is disturbing, so leave the young kids home for this one, but for those sitting at the adult table, the current production boldly challenges the audience to stay with it, even when the details are intense and yes, sometimes unsavory.

The entire play takes place in the cafeteria at Ray’s workplace. The adult Una arrives and we soon learn that she has come to confront him for having seduced her as a 12-year old, 15 years before, when he was in his 40s.

We learn that Ray has served time in prison for the affair. He has changed his name, moved, taken up with an older woman—who has a young daughter (Scarlet McMonigle)—and found a job, in an effort to make a new life. Una points out that she has suffered more. She had to stay with her family in the same town with the same name, has lost a lot of friends, and as an adult, sought solace from memories with promiscuous affairs.

In the course of rehashing their affair, Una goes over what happened to bring it out of the shadows into glaring public light. The script in this monologue requires a prodigious memory, and Kruel, a fine actress, is up to the task. We learn that because Una was infatuated with Ray, she hid facts of the case from the police. Ray counters with his own version, which brings out facets of a somewhat craven, irresponsible character.

They shout, accuse, throw chairs and trash around, but ultimately attempt to reconcile with carnal interaction. This is important, since for “Blackbird” to work, you have to see it as a love story — an unfortunate, misguided love story that wrecks lives, but still a love story. And both the attraction and the damage will continue to linger.

Blackbird runs at the Studios of Key West, 533 Eaton St. from Fri. and Sat. March 3-4 at 8:00 and at 7 p.m. on March 5. For more information, call 305-766-2045.

(Joanna Brady is a Key West writer, author of The Woman at the Light, a historical novel of early Key West, published by St. Martin’s Press.)

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