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Una is young, and at first glance a little wild, maybe crazy. In "Blackbird," David Harrower's tough-edged contemporary play about criminal love, she has traveled across state lines to confront an older man in the most unlikely of locations: a nondescript office break room.
At first glance that middle-aged man, Ray, appears likable, even trustworthy.
What follows will undermine initial perceptions, as theatergoers learn that his attentions might have damaged her. Or maybe he abandoned her.
The story of what happened in the pair's past usually provides the fodder for daily news headlines — a quick glance about a story reporting a court case, maybe a prison sentence, and then readers move on.
But the impact of "Blackbird" comes as theatergoers are asked to stay in an uncomfortable place until the aftermath begins to emerge.
Utah Repertory Theater is introducing the poetry of Harrower's stuttering form of dialogue, embodied last year by Michelle Williams and Jeff Daniels during the show's Broadway run, to local audiences. The regional premiere, featuring Utah actors Anne Louise Brings and Mark Fossen, opens Friday, July 14, at Sorenson Unity Center.
You might describe "Blackbird" as a story about the dangerous layers of sex and power and damage, but it's also a story about love in all of its ugly, wonderful, dark and mysterious forms, says director L.L. West.
"It's not an easy topic, and not one we talk openly about very much," he says. "It should prompt a lot of discussion. It's a 75-minute play, but I think there's another act as people drive home, as people talk about the play. It doesn't resolve."
It's not a political play, says Fossen, but it ties into all the news of sexual abuse, as it doesn't allow theatergoers to look away from the subject.
The playwright's language "out-Mamets Mamet," West says, lauding the dialogue's mean-spirited, yet loving, dark poetry. "It's so honest and it's so broken, as these people are."
Brings describes the story's two characters as "exceedingly complex." Una is mercurial and not particularly charismatic, and she doesn't have a clear sense of what she wants from Ray.
Ray is a person without a lot of empathy for others, Fossen says, one of a string of difficult characters the actor has embodied on local stages. "I tend to play a lot of monsters, pretty horrible people, and I try to humanize them," he says.
The complexity of his character offers an interesting challenge for Fossen, who draws upon writer/director Anne Bogart's description of actors as "athletes of the heart." Getting inside his character's skin makes the actor want to punch himself when he walks out of rehearsals.
"When I'm onstage with Anne, I see who this guy is, why he did what he did, why he thinks he did what he did," Fossen says. "Another part of my brain thinks: 'There are no excuses. This isn't OK.' "
The characters argue and confront each other in starts and stops, often looping back to rephrase or repeat fragments of thoughts.
Even their language reveals their damage. When Una recollects her past, "she tends to be inconsistent with her pronouns and past and present tenses," Brings says. "She can't even get it together to really properly construct a sentence. That's so tragic."
West says he's underscoring that naturalistic style in the play's blocking, urging the actors toward stillness.
"The play is interesting enough without us running around the stage and doing things," Fossen says. "The stillness is actually quite wonderful. And then you find the complexity in the little things. It's not about when do I walk across the room, but when do I turn my head? There's still blocking, but it just becomes smaller and smaller and more filmlike."
Despite the play's dark subject, Fossen says, "it's joyful to be working on a script this tricky with people like [West] and Anne, exactly because it's not easy."
facebook.com/ellen.weist —
The tough songs of 'Blackbird'
Utah Repertory Theater presents a regional premiere of David Harrower's 2005 play, which featured Jeff Daniels and Michelle Williams in last year's Broadway run.
When • July 14-15, 21-22, 28-29 at 7:30 p.m.; and at 3 p.m. Sunday, July 30
Where • Sorenson Unity Center's Black Box Theater, 1383 S. 900 West, Salt Lake City
Tickets • $20 ($17 students/seniors), utahrep.org/tickets; "pay what you may" performance on Friday, July 14