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Sometimes the truth of consequence is a brutal pill to swallow.
Try as we might to keep it repressed, to bottle it up and move on, the truth always comes back and demands accounting for.
In a new play opening Saturday night in the Nelson Library basement (8 p.m.), Blackbird, the brutal truth of an unconventional and forbidden relationship between a 40-year-old man and a 12-year-old girl is revealed 15 years later.
In Blackbird, a man is confronted with his past when the young woman arrives unannounced at his office, spilling guilt, rage and emotion over the brim in their meeting.
It is a play that tears the cover off a very contentious subject, said Blackbird’s director, Adriana Bogaard, and presents a challenge not only to her cast of two — Michael Graham and Jen Viens — but for the audience.
In presenting David Harrower’s play, they didn’t try to soften any of the language or any of the situations, said Bogaard, electing to keep the emotional electricity and tension on high.
“If you are going to choose a piece like this you have to go for it and not try to make it more comfortable for the audience,” she said.
That’s a hard line to take, to intentionally and painfully expose the raw truth, but the play also includes a discussion afterwards as part of a community awareness project, with a talk back session with the artists involved as well as members of the Nelson Advocacy Centre.
Even so, there is no attempt to lay blame, to judge, to try and garner sympathy in the play, it just opens up the Pandora’s box of emotion such a relationship can elicit. It’s a great piece for an actor, said Graham, who plays the older man, but it is also hard and very emotional.
“The thing that has happened for me, and it’s when you talk of child abuse, is it once was a black and white issue. But now, doing this play, I’m seeing this gray area appearing and it’s a bit of a mind bender,” he said.
He understood the process the man went through and what he has done to get on with his life after the fact. The process is something like a drug addict or an alcoholic in certain ways, said Graham.
The perspective of the play reveals what happened to a 12-year-old child after this is done to her, what she went through as she moved into adulthood, and what the adults themselves think now knowing they’ve done this.
It doesn’t place blame on either person, said Viens, it’s a fair look.
“In this situation the perpetrator moved on with his life and the young woman can’t accept certain things,” she said.
“It is interesting in that the way it is written, the focal point is not really what happened in the past … it’s more the processes after and how they carried on, and what happened in the 15 years since then.”
The play opens this Saturday night (8 p.m.) and Sunday, with two more shows Feb. 6,7 in the Nelson Municipal Library basement (entrance on Victoria Street). Tickets are $15, $18 at the door.
Along with Graham and Viens, Sadie Glockner also makes an appearance. Set design is by Shayne Brandel with stage managing by Kendra Cooper.
Please be advised that this play contains language and issues that are only suitable for those aged 16 and older.
VIENS BRINGS OKANAGAN FLAVOUR
Most people in Nelson know Michael Graham and Adriana Bogaard, both theatre veterans, but Penticton’s Jen Viens may not be as well known.
Although she has appeared on stage in Nelson in TNT’s Fantastiks in 2009, she has made her name in the Okanagan as the instructor and artistic director of Twisted Tree Theatre.
She specializes in teaching children, and presenting plays for young audiences. Viens is the former drama instructor for Bare Bones Theatre, and spent many years directing, producing, and acting for the company.
Viens has taken her extensive stage experience and branched out in to the world of film and television working both in front and behind the camera with independent and mainstream companies in the lower mainland.
She has training in comedy improvisation and clowning, attended UBC's theatre program and has studied with Matthew Harrison at the Actor's Foundry.
