Dreamwell -
Blackbird by David Harrower is an intense show. The topic is incendiary and the execution is intimate. Of course, that's what Dreamwell's 2010 season - "A Taboo Bijou" - is all about. We had a chance to talk to the director, Angie Toomsen, and the actors, Erin Mills and Rip Russell about this very unique show.
Can you give me a brief synopsis of the show?Angie: Something inappropriate happened between Una and Ray 15 years ago, when he was 40 and she was 12. Una locates Ray and visits him at his place of work. And they spend the 90 minutes traversing the distance between them, recounting the past and trying to find some kind of closure/resolution. Ray would have preferred this encounter didn't happen. For Una, this meeting is a necessity in ways she doesn't even fully understand when she first walks in the door. I won't say how it ends but they log quite a few emotional miles in this brief play.
Why did you want to direct this show?Angie: I felt it was a very brave, very honest account of one potential scenario in the lifelong wake of an inappropriate relationship. Theatre gives us an opportunity to make a meeting like this possible. When in real life do we get the opportunity to corner someone who hurt us in a little room and hash out what really happened and why? I love it when film and theatre ask these cathartic "what if's." When I first read it, it reminded me, in many ways, of a Richard Linklater film called
Tape, where a man orchestrates a hotel room meeting between two high school friends, one of whom raped the other. It's like, in these four walls - in this finite amount of time - we are going to claw our way to freedom or understanding...somehow.
Blackbird has a similar structure, but there's no moderator. There's no one to "referee" this meeting. There's no one keep this encounter "on the rails." And that's where it gets dangerous. I wanted to direct this because the places it goes are not textbook. This show isn't "settling."
The writing in this piece is written with line breaks and a rhythm that is almost poetic. How did that affect your rehearsal process? Angie: This is both helpful and extremely difficult for the actors. During one rehearsal we kind of arrived at the decision that a period at the end of a sentence was, in fact, a period. If there was no period preceding the line, it's a "cut off." It sounds really technical, and it is, but decoding the way he wrote it is absolutely necessary. What he's done, basically, is write the way we actually speak. Who speaks in perfectly formed sentences? We stop, start, interrupt each other. The key is really knowing what you were going to say. It's been hard in a lot of ways to make this natural, but it's been helpful in others. For example, when Ray stops and starts himself it's like he's catching himself, reframing what he's saying. So it very much fits.
Rip: I really thought it would be difficult to memorize the playwright’s style of writing. The difficulty comes from remembering when your character has a cut-off line or a full stop. It’s like where to put the air!
Erin: Yes, it made the rehearsal process more challenging. I am accustomed to reading prose in a script, then finding line breaks intuitively as a way to lift the character off of the page. But Harrower wrote these line breaks- incomplete interjections that are a part of natural speech - into the script, which has the effect of making them unnatural, initially. I had to work in reverse order in that way, by making sense of sputtered speech that was already written for me. However, it flows beautifully and makes a lot of sense if you're only reading it!
Rip, can you talk about your character?Rip: Ray is a tragic figure. He has done despicable acts in his past, been punished by society, and has been left to deal with it on his own. He has admittedly ushed it away as far as he can. But it will always be with him. As a character, he is essentially a normal person with a closeted past. When confronted by Una, past emotions bubble to the surface.
Let’s talk about Una a little bit. Erin, can you tell us what it was like to portray her? Erin: Something Angie and I concluded early on is that Una does not act like a healthily-adjusted person, mentally or emotionally. I had to realize that much of this play is about showcasing the effects that her first "relationship" had, and still has, on her. The character of Una makes a lot more sense when you understand her as a person with poor mental health, who would qualify for some clinical diagnoses. It has helped me feel comfortable saying some of the shocking things that she says. But fundamentally, she is a walking ball of emotion, and it has been somewhat tiring and very intense to play her. Yet, she's so interesting, complex, intelligent, and open to catharsis, that I do love portraying her.
Angie, how did you help your actors get into these very complex and difficult roles?
Angie: One thing that I think has helped is we have really worked very slowly into some of the tough stuff. I knew Erin a little before this process and had only just met Rip. I don't think Erin and Rip knew each other very well either. So I wanted to cultivate a sense of trust among the three of us. In a play that gets very personal like this, it's easy to think "I hope I don't creep her out" or "I hope he knows I'm okay with this, etc etc." So we have peeled back the layers each week as we've gotten to know one another better. There is a very challenging moment that I have saved to the last week prior to tech to really get into, but I feel confident that we can "go there" now. The other thing that I hope I have done to help them is just reinforcing that they are "enough" and don't have to work so hard. This play is such a roller coaster for both of them so helping them understand that they can conserve their energy by trusting that the playwright has done most of the work already. They don't need to worry about whether or not this will be compelling.
What choices did you have to make as a director to make this show work?Angie: When I heard Erin read the role I knew that she had the special "lived" quality, despite her youth, that Una needed. Una is intelligent, wise, intuitive, but also very fragile at the core. Erin gets that. The only thing is, she was doing
Wonderful Town at the time and, if I cast her, we would only really have three dedicated weeks of rehearsal. But I made that choice because I wanted her soulfulness in the play. Rip hadn't originally auditioned and I hadn't had someone who really looked that much older than Erin. When Rip came on board - even though I can't say he looks 55 - it was the right chemistry. And he is a workhorse - very serious about the process and a very generous actor. So, I really think casting was the biggest choice that I felt would set this up for success.
When working on Blackbird, were there any past theatre experiences that you drew on that helped you get into this character? Erin: Actually, I can't think of theatre experiences as sources, since this has been my most challenging role yet! They have helped on a basic acting level, surely. But mostly I drew on personal experiences I've had with people I've talked to or known - particularly victims of sexual abuse - and my own feelings about ex-boyfriends, where it's applicable. Though it must be stated that I've never experienced anything like this situation myself. I just hope I'm conveying it well.
Can you talk about the rehearsal process in general and how you two worked together?Rip: Erin was rehearsing
Wonderful Town when we began so we had limited time together until three weeks ago. The key to his play is the chemistry of the actors. Erin is a very quick study and a very generous actor.
Blackbird calls for the actors to completely trust each other and I think Erin and I are doing that nicely.
Erin: Right, the rehearsal process has been very private and driven by hard work. It hasn't felt socially appropriate to describe what we're doing in casual conversation because it's so serious and heavy. I feel that Rip, Angie, and I have worked as a true union, a force, because we are all highly committed to the show. It's the kind of show that would totally fail if we weren't. Rip is such a great actor because he's a great person - he can rebuild himself. I think we all had to let ourselves transform. But there were lighter moments, for instance, when we'd screw up a really dramatic part and watch it turn into a soap opera. Or just need to laugh because everything was so grave.
Angie, can you talk about the staging of the show, the set, the lights - all of that side of things?Angie: It's simple. Spartan. That's all I can say. I would love to have given a designer the money to create something wildly imaginative and symbolic, but we don't have the time or the budget, and this show doesn't require all of that. It's a breakroom in a pharmaceutical supply company. It's blue collar. It's a mess, which really represents Ray's life/inner self when Una tracks him down. He's not prepared, in any way, for this meeting. So we will use props and such to create that space as best we can.
Part of the play’s power is that it can be played different ways, with more or less sympathy for Ray and Una and their individual situations – without telling us the choice you made, I wondered how you came to decide how to play it. What I mean is, did you reach an agreement as a cast, did you as director say how you wanted it played, or did the actors each decide their own way to go and allow that contrast to show?Angie: I think the script itself naturally sympathizes with Una more than Ray. In no way does it ever say what Ray did was understandable, but I do feel the most powerful way to direct this show is to remove judgment. That can be tough. It goes without saying that all three of us firmly believe that the sexual violation of a minor is wrong! And these characters also understand it's wrong. But the characters' feelings about the situation need to be understood without judgment. It is possible to demonize Ray. It is. We have asking the last few rehearsals how much of what he says could be a lie? We have found some specific areas to consider, but I want to assume most of what he's saying is true - or, at least, he believes it to be true. And that he can care for her as a person - for her well being - on some level. That he was "sick." That's what makes this play challenging for both the audience and the actors.
Was there an aha! moment during the rehearsal process when it all sort of clicked together for you? Angie: This process has had a steady stream of "clicks" from the start. We'll go over a section, or an idea, and suddenly I find myself saying "he gets it now" or "she knows what I meant." I suppose the initial big "click" was working with Erin and Rip and seeing how much each of them responds to direction. No one takes anything personally and they can integrate ideas and shift almost immediately. That's when I went "okay, this is going to be fun."
Rip: Last week sometime I realized that our characters were just “talking.” Not fumbling for line or thinking what is next. It was very natural and very honest. I was like, “Wow! This is working!”
Erin: I think there were several of those. A few came while I was reading psychological case studies for research. More came while Una was sharing some of her history, and I started to feel like it might as well have been mine, because I was starting to "become" her.
What is it you want the audience to take from this show?Angie: It's hard to say "I want the audience to think/feel such-and-such." But, I do want them to feel included. That they've been allowed to witness something personal. Even feel like voyeurs at times. That takes a rare depth of stillness and lack of ego, but that's what I aspire to with this piece.
Erin: I think it will surprise you no matter what you expect to see.
Blackbird opens Friday, March 19 at 7:30 at 10 S. Gilbert in Iowa City. Tickets can be reserved online or by calling 319-541-0140. It runs March 19, 20, 26, and 27.
