David Harrower is trying to talk about Blackbird, his taboo-busting 2005 play which wowed audiences at that year’s Edinburgh International Festival. On the eve of a commercial tour of the play which arrives in Glasgow next week, there’s as much to talk about Blackbird now as there was three years ago. Here, after all, was a play that depicted a reunion between former lovers like few plays before or since. Ray and Una, the couple attempting to sort out unfinished business, after all, had been 41 and 12 when they’d first fallen for each other. Fifteen years on, with new lives still only partly built, the uncomfortable truth of who initiated the affair goes way beyond any knee-jerk reactions to apparent paedophilia.
The original production directed by German elder statesman Peter Stein’s was as remarkable as its subject, not least because of an eye-poppingly extravagant scene change involving a moving car. Rather than vilified for peddling filth, Blackbird became a hit. It transferred to the west end, where it picked up an Olivier award for best new play. Off-Broadway, it became a star vehicle for Jeff Daniels, and was directed by Cate Blanchett at Sydney Opera House. Currently there are productions of Blackbird ongoing in thirty different countries.
With such an unprecedented global success clearly tapping into something beyond the play’s complex ambiguities, and this new production featuring Dawn Steele and Robert Daws, you’d think such a crossover would be an excuse for self-congratulation. Like his characters, though, Harrower has moved on.
“You can tell I’m really excited about talking about it,” he deadpans, recognising how he may potentially come across. “I’m just bored with it. It’s gone. I’ve had difficulty writing recently, and I want to forget about it. I need to be writing now and not thinking about an old play.”
There’s something about Blackbird, though, that won’t lie down.
“I’ve never been asked as much about my work as I have with this play,” Harrower says. “But I can’t get excited about it anymore, even though people who are doing it for the first time do. I think I’m sometimes seen as this wet blanket, and that’s why I tend not to go. I’m answering the same questions over and over, and that sounds really ungrateful, but I don’t mean it to be.”
Harrower would rather his work spoke for itself. With such contentious subject matter, however, he knew he’d have to defend it sooner or later.
“I thought I would definitely get it in the neck,” he says. “Especially off women. But the worst reactions I’ve had have all been from men, unbelievably. In Ireland I was on this breakfast radio show and basically got mugged on air by this guy who hadn’t seen it and who hadn’t read it, but who just laid into me. He was saying 12 year olds should be playing with their toys, and kept going on about flowers and meadows and all this stuff.
“That was the worst experience I’ve had. Women have been very positive about it. Some who spoke to me said they had relationships with older men when they were very young, and which were labelled inappropriate, but which the women say they were in control of. They knew exactly what they were doing, even though they were 12, 13, 14 and having these relationships with 35, 38, 42 year old men.”
Blackbird is the first of Harrower’s original works since Knives In Hens that’s crossed over in any way similar to his startling 1995 debut. While not exactly bookends, the two plays seem linked in a way that everything that’s come between them, from it’s follow-up, Kill The Old Torture Their Young, to his translation of Brecht’s The Good Person of Setzchtuan, currently dividing opinion in a London production starring Jane Horrocks, don’t.
“It’s weird that,” Harrower admits. “They seem linked in terms of there being very few characters and relying on language in terms of plot. They’re akin to each other in a way the others aren’t. The others are more plot driven, and less encapsulating of their own form if you like. But since Blackbird, I love writing like that so much now, that I can’t go back to writing across the page.”
Following the phenomenal success of Knives Hens, which, like Blackbird, caught fire across the world, Harrower was faced with the playwriting equivalent of the tricky second album syndrome. With Blackbird his fifth original work in a decade, the pressure on number six sounds similar. Where do you go, then, after a play like Blackbird?
“I haven’t written a new piece of theatre for three years,” Harrower says, “and I don’t know what I’ve been doing.”
Given that, as well as plays under commission for the RSC and the National Theatre, Harrower’s next play, 365, is scheduled to open in August as the National Theatre of Scotland’s contribution to Edinburgh International Festival, this sounds worrying. But whatever he says, Harrower hasn’t been idle. He’s written a film for Channel Four that has yet to see the light of day, and has continued work on a long mooted big screen adaptation of Ruari Nicoll’s novel, White Male Heart. There’s also talk of doing something with Michel Faber’s first novel, Under The Skin.
Initiated by NTS artistic director Vicky Featherstone, 365 will look at the thorny issue of children in care, and may be set in a Practice Flat, a halfway house before teenagers go out into the world. 365 also looks set to take Harrower into new, more collaborative areas.
“I’m pushing and prodding this play,” he says, “but nothing’s happening yet. I’ve just got to wait. I’m wandering round the flat with all this research lying there, trying to build up a good case for writing it. But something will come. I’m finding out what areas I want to go into, and I’ll just see where I’m led.”
In the meantime, there’s Blackbird, which Harrower is also attempting to turn into a film script.
“You have to contextualise it a bit more,” he says of the process. “It’s been quite fun doing that, because you get to see the world she might have gone into after their affair. What happens with it depends on how much it’s in the public eye. It might rattle around for a while, but we’ll wait and see.”
Of Blackbird the play, lest any radio presenters think otherwise, Harrower is keen to stress that “It’s not out to shock or point the finger. It’s quite a considered and held back piece in many ways, and maybe does something that’s more pernicious than just shout at people. It does something quieter and more insidious. Every time I see the play, and I don’t see it that often, I’m still caught between these two people and who’s to blame. I sometimes wonder if I met this man, how I’d react.”
Social mores around the world may also affect how Blackbird is received abroad.
“It depends on how children are viewed, and what the age of consent is. In Chile I think it’s really young. But beyond that, I know the play’s about something else than just sex or illegality. There’s something going on about creating your own memories. There’s a dance there between these two people that’s about them trying to find out who they are.”
Blackbird, Theatre Royal, Glasgow, June 9-14
The Good Soul Of Szechuan, Young Vic, London, until June 28
365 – One Night To Learn A Lifetime, Edinburgh Playhouse, August 22-25
www.theambassadors.com/theatreroyalglasgow
www.youngvic.org
www.eif.co.uk
The Herald, June 3rd 2008
ends
The original production directed by German elder statesman Peter Stein’s was as remarkable as its subject, not least because of an eye-poppingly extravagant scene change involving a moving car. Rather than vilified for peddling filth, Blackbird became a hit. It transferred to the west end, where it picked up an Olivier award for best new play. Off-Broadway, it became a star vehicle for Jeff Daniels, and was directed by Cate Blanchett at Sydney Opera House. Currently there are productions of Blackbird ongoing in thirty different countries.
With such an unprecedented global success clearly tapping into something beyond the play’s complex ambiguities, and this new production featuring Dawn Steele and Robert Daws, you’d think such a crossover would be an excuse for self-congratulation. Like his characters, though, Harrower has moved on.
“You can tell I’m really excited about talking about it,” he deadpans, recognising how he may potentially come across. “I’m just bored with it. It’s gone. I’ve had difficulty writing recently, and I want to forget about it. I need to be writing now and not thinking about an old play.”
There’s something about Blackbird, though, that won’t lie down.
“I’ve never been asked as much about my work as I have with this play,” Harrower says. “But I can’t get excited about it anymore, even though people who are doing it for the first time do. I think I’m sometimes seen as this wet blanket, and that’s why I tend not to go. I’m answering the same questions over and over, and that sounds really ungrateful, but I don’t mean it to be.”
Harrower would rather his work spoke for itself. With such contentious subject matter, however, he knew he’d have to defend it sooner or later.
“I thought I would definitely get it in the neck,” he says. “Especially off women. But the worst reactions I’ve had have all been from men, unbelievably. In Ireland I was on this breakfast radio show and basically got mugged on air by this guy who hadn’t seen it and who hadn’t read it, but who just laid into me. He was saying 12 year olds should be playing with their toys, and kept going on about flowers and meadows and all this stuff.
“That was the worst experience I’ve had. Women have been very positive about it. Some who spoke to me said they had relationships with older men when they were very young, and which were labelled inappropriate, but which the women say they were in control of. They knew exactly what they were doing, even though they were 12, 13, 14 and having these relationships with 35, 38, 42 year old men.”
Blackbird is the first of Harrower’s original works since Knives In Hens that’s crossed over in any way similar to his startling 1995 debut. While not exactly bookends, the two plays seem linked in a way that everything that’s come between them, from it’s follow-up, Kill The Old Torture Their Young, to his translation of Brecht’s The Good Person of Setzchtuan, currently dividing opinion in a London production starring Jane Horrocks, don’t.
“It’s weird that,” Harrower admits. “They seem linked in terms of there being very few characters and relying on language in terms of plot. They’re akin to each other in a way the others aren’t. The others are more plot driven, and less encapsulating of their own form if you like. But since Blackbird, I love writing like that so much now, that I can’t go back to writing across the page.”
Following the phenomenal success of Knives Hens, which, like Blackbird, caught fire across the world, Harrower was faced with the playwriting equivalent of the tricky second album syndrome. With Blackbird his fifth original work in a decade, the pressure on number six sounds similar. Where do you go, then, after a play like Blackbird?
“I haven’t written a new piece of theatre for three years,” Harrower says, “and I don’t know what I’ve been doing.”
Given that, as well as plays under commission for the RSC and the National Theatre, Harrower’s next play, 365, is scheduled to open in August as the National Theatre of Scotland’s contribution to Edinburgh International Festival, this sounds worrying. But whatever he says, Harrower hasn’t been idle. He’s written a film for Channel Four that has yet to see the light of day, and has continued work on a long mooted big screen adaptation of Ruari Nicoll’s novel, White Male Heart. There’s also talk of doing something with Michel Faber’s first novel, Under The Skin.
Initiated by NTS artistic director Vicky Featherstone, 365 will look at the thorny issue of children in care, and may be set in a Practice Flat, a halfway house before teenagers go out into the world. 365 also looks set to take Harrower into new, more collaborative areas.
“I’m pushing and prodding this play,” he says, “but nothing’s happening yet. I’ve just got to wait. I’m wandering round the flat with all this research lying there, trying to build up a good case for writing it. But something will come. I’m finding out what areas I want to go into, and I’ll just see where I’m led.”
In the meantime, there’s Blackbird, which Harrower is also attempting to turn into a film script.
“You have to contextualise it a bit more,” he says of the process. “It’s been quite fun doing that, because you get to see the world she might have gone into after their affair. What happens with it depends on how much it’s in the public eye. It might rattle around for a while, but we’ll wait and see.”
Of Blackbird the play, lest any radio presenters think otherwise, Harrower is keen to stress that “It’s not out to shock or point the finger. It’s quite a considered and held back piece in many ways, and maybe does something that’s more pernicious than just shout at people. It does something quieter and more insidious. Every time I see the play, and I don’t see it that often, I’m still caught between these two people and who’s to blame. I sometimes wonder if I met this man, how I’d react.”
Social mores around the world may also affect how Blackbird is received abroad.
“It depends on how children are viewed, and what the age of consent is. In Chile I think it’s really young. But beyond that, I know the play’s about something else than just sex or illegality. There’s something going on about creating your own memories. There’s a dance there between these two people that’s about them trying to find out who they are.”
Blackbird, Theatre Royal, Glasgow, June 9-14
The Good Soul Of Szechuan, Young Vic, London, until June 28
365 – One Night To Learn A Lifetime, Edinburgh Playhouse, August 22-25
www.theambassadors.com/theatreroyalglasgow
www.youngvic.org
www.eif.co.uk
The Herald, June 3rd 2008
ends
Comments