And so a year has passed since we first looked into the mouth of this beast. It’s hard to talk about the play without spoiling it, but I’ll do my best… Blackbird is a story of shame. In our resumed exploration of their relationship, two things have become abundantly clear; despite court ordered therapy Una’s never been able to truly deal with her part in “the event” 15 years ago, how she truly felt has been covered, suppressed, taken away from her. She’s been given the story that she was never in control; so how could she ever trust herself again? How could she ever be a person, when the one time she truly felt alive and seen and heard was a sham? Ray has chosen to run away from himself rather than face the reality of who he is and what he is capable of. For him it was one time, years ago. For him it was Una and only Una and everything else is not worth thinking about. When someone is on the other side of potentially their worst act, what are they supposed to do? What are they supposed to believe? The truth for both of these people is that they have become, by choice or by force, victims of their own shame. And thus the past will always remain in the present with them. The Una that Ray sees in this play is not just the adult, but also the child. The Ray that Una sees is not just her abuser but also the love her life. In any instance they are in the court room but they’re also on that beach, staring across the sea, holding hands. I feel Blackbird asks the impossible; it demands compassion for the reprehensible. It asks us to fall blind into the wrong and be in and amongst the danger, just for a moment. We watch this play, we believe this can happen and we see it with our own eyes. The past, the present, the future. And then we leave, and whether we know it or not, we’re a little less blind to it. We see a signal, we watch a man pay attention to a little girl. We watch a little boy slip a note on a neighbours car. We see our nephew or our daughter or sibling or any child have a crush on their teacher, and we remember Una and we act. If I’ve learned anything in my year with this script it’s that people like Ray don’t appear from nothing. It’s that people like Una are not simply fixed by rendering them as victims and given a pat on the head. Pretending we don’t see them or putting them in a cell or disregarding the yucky, murky things they’ve done or felt will do nothing but create copies. I’m a survivor of a man like Ray, I know a lot more people are than are willing to talk about it. And if Blackbird has taught me anything, it’s that silence is where stories like mine fester — and it’s only by looking directly into the mouth of the beast that we have any hope of keeping it from swallowing someone else.

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Pippa Thoroughgood