Jeff Daniels returns to Broadway starring opposite Michelle Williams in "Blackbird." NY1’s Roma Torre filed the following review.
Jeff Daniels and Michelle Williams leave it all on the floor, you might say, in this wrenching two-hander by Scottish playwright David Harrower. Intensely gripping and deeply disturbing, it is what I can only imagine the Greeks had in mind when they came up with the word "catharsis."
It even adheres to the Greek unities: a single action, in a single setting, on a single day. I hesitate to give too much away, but it is the tragic aftermath of an inappropriate relationship between a 40-year-old man and a 12-year-old girl.
The title "Blackbird" is British slang for jailbird, so you can pretty much infer the central conflict here as the plot zeroes in on the two characters 15 years after their first fateful meeting.
For 80 harrowing minutes, we experience the psychological and emotional damage wrought on both these individuals as they relive the painful events that brought them here. And as we learn details of the early encounter, their power struggle and our sympathies shift so that by the end, there are no easy answers and certainly no conclusions.
Director Joe Mantello and Jeff Daniels first tackled this play nine years ago off-Broadway, and whether gluttons for punishment or perfectionists, they are back again alongside Michelle Williams, who matches their intensity with a performance that leaves you worried for her mental health.
Daniels, as well, pulls out all the stops as a man forced to purge himself in an unrelenting display of panic borne of guilt and fear.
"Blackbird" is not exactly the kind of play you "enjoy," but with this production, it is theatre at its purest, as classic in its own way as those famous Greek tragedies. Still, for the sake of their well-being, I hope Messrs Mantello, Daniels, and Ms. Williams find something less taxing to do after this run. How about it, Scott Rudin – a revival of My Fair Lady, perhaps?