Theater: Blackbird an emotional workout

I am innately suspicious of star vehicles. I seem less wired to admire someone for who they are/have been for what they can now do. ENTPs are like that sometimes. Overall, I usually evaluate the theater, opera, etc. more for the overall quality of the play and production than for the individual performance, with some exceptions (seeing imperfect versions of Birgit Nilsson at 60 or Vladimir Horowitz  at 80, e. g.). So I have little patience for opera and ballet queens who discuss the performers rather than the performance. 

That said, I enjoyed seeing Jeff Daniels and Michelle Williams flog one another at Blackbird, the intense and excellent two character play by David Harrower. Seeing it the day after a well-reviewed but mostly tedious The Crucible, I admired the play's taut construction. It gets to its point quickly and ratchets up the tension with a constant forward motion mostly absent in the Arthur Miller play, which seemed glacially long by comparison. 

Its a simple structure. Past child sexual victim accosts perpetrator years later. 1. They re-meet, parry, fence, fight. 2. You hear her side. 3. You hear his side. 4. There is resolution of a sort. Simple, clear, structured. Simple set. No odd time devices, flashbacks, virtuosic playwright tricks. It just feels real in an operatically emotive way, sort of like what you get from Tennessee Williams when he revvs it up. This makes the production utterly dependent on two compelling leads, and that's where hiring two very talented actors was the key to this production. The exertion and intensity required to hold the stage for this theatrical cauldron must be Olympian for Mr. Daniels and Ms. Williams, and part of the joy of watching this play was that of admiring an athlete at his/her peak. Not exactly in awe because there is a star present, but in awe because of what this human is capable of.

While I did not emerge with new insights into pederasty, sexual abuse, or human sexuality (Nabokov covered some of this quite well in the 1950s), I emerged exhilarated for having seen a beautifully constructed play that put me and the actors through an emotional wringer. See this play.