Theater review: ‘Blackbird’ at Elephant Theatre Lab
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As frank depictions of human degradation go, the gritty dramas of Adam Rapp leave little to the imagination. It’s therefore no surprise that despite being nominally a love story, ‘Blackbird,’ his 2004 two-hander revived at Elephant Theatre Lab, seeks to rip the last shreds of dignity from the social misfits that are Rapp’s forte.
A frustrating mix of indulgent scripting pierced by flashes of downbeat poetic virtuosity, the piece demands -- and gets -- fearless physical commitment from performers Johnny Clark and Jade Dornfeld, respectively well-cast as an embittered Gulf War vet and a teenage heroin addict holed up in a claustrophobic one-room Manhattan tenement (realized in spectacularly squalid detail in Danny Cistone’s set design).
On this heavy-handedly symbolic Christmas Eve in the late 1990s, 32-year-old ex-junkie Baylis
survives on disability checks for his sciatica and herniated disk, while his stripper girlfriend Froggy, a submissive product of abuse and worse, has just been diagnosed with hepatitis. Baylis has a bad habit of venting rage on ill-chosen objects -- a recent altercation with a TV set has left his foot basically useless.
And that’s just the opening volley. What follows is part stage play, part laundry list of human misery. And soiled laundry at that -- incontinence prominently tops the physical humiliations on graphic display as Baylis’ lack of bowel control forces him into adult diapers and Froggy keeps wetting their bed. Director Ron Klier embraces the play’s obsessive focus on bodily functions with relish, padding excruciating details with deliberate pacing.
To their credit, Clark and Dornfield make the affection between these characters palpable, nailing the moments of tenderness that redeems their humanity. Yet there’s less here than meets the eye: The losers-in-love premise has been handled with more depth -- and respect for an audience’s time -- by the likes of Sam Shepard, Lanford Wilson and others. In piling on every imaginable problem and trauma, Rapp seriously overplays his hand, numbing whatever sympathies we might have for these two people. By the time Baylis reaches for a shot of novacaine, it feels like we’ve already had our fix.
-- Philip Brandes
‘Blackbird,’ Elephant Theatre Lab, 6324 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays. Ends Sept. 19. $20. (323) 860-3283. Running time: 2 hour, 40 minutes.