Blackbird at Grove Theater Center

Blackbird

Grove Theater Center
1111-b West Olive Ave Burbank

Scottish playwright David Harrower's drama won the 2007 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play and had a critically acclaimed run on Broadway last year. Inspired in part by the crimes of sex offender Toby Studebaker (though in no way a literal dramatization of actual events) the play depicts a young woman meeting a middle-aged man 15 years after being sexually abused by him when she was 12 years old.

Thru - Sep 17, 2017

Saturdays: 8:00pm

Sundays: 7:00pm

Price: $20

Show Type: Drama

Box Office: 818-528-6622

www.gtc.org

Blackbird Reviews

Average Rating based on 3 reviews

Highly Recommended
Recommended
Somewhat Recommended
Not Recommended

Los Angeles Times - Somewhat Recommended

"...Both actors convincingly evoke the psychological scars and tormented legacy of their characters' past. Less believable, though, is what's taking place between them in the present. Jeremy Adrianne Lelliott's staging is particularly problematic in the first half, as Ray and Una warily circle each other. Harrower's intentionally choppy, overlapping dialogue recalls the styles of Harold Pinter and David Mamet in its incomplete sentences, trailing thoughts, pauses and non-sequiturs. However, the pacing still needs to reflect an attempted conversation between two people fumbling for the right words to say, not just reciting lines at each other."

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- Philip Brandes

Stage Raw - Recommended

"...On balance, this is a good production, with convincing, emotionally tuned performances. Director Jeremy Adrianne Lelliott does an excellent job of exploiting the play's atmospheric density."

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- Lovell Estell III

Ticket Holders LA - Highly Recommended

"...Una (here played by Candace Hammer) has arrived at the workplace of Peter (Eric Larson), whom she knows as Ray. She demands to see him and he quickly ushers her into the company's claustrophobic mess of a breakroom, desperately trying to get her to leave or go outside to talk or just simply keep her voice down. Ray has a lot about which to keep quiet, as neither his coworkers nor his current girlfriend know anything about his former life, the life that ended with a prison term after his three-month affair with Una when she was 12 changed both of their lives forever."

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- Travis Michael Holder

Blackbird at Grove Theater Center

Blackbird

Blackbird Reviews

Los Angeles Times - Somewhat Recommended

Stage Raw - Recommended

Ticket Holders LA - Highly Recommended

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