Jeff Daniels and Michelle Williams will return to Broadway this season to star in David Harrower's Olivier Award-winning drama BLACKBIRD. The production, to be directed by Joe Mantello.
BLACKBIRD tells the story of Una and Ray. Fifteen years earlier they had a relationship and haven't set eyes on each other since. Now she's found him again.
The marvel of Daniels' performance then and now is that his Ray could just be a big liar...He keeps us guessing...Williams means to give a big, bravura performance that starts at a white-hot pitch and descends into near madness...Her performance as Una is mannered to the point of distraction. It's as if the sexual abuse her character suffered 15 years ago has caused not only a speech impediment but uncontrollable physical spasms that now affect her walk, gestures, and facial expressions. As a film actress, Williams can be subtle and nuanced. On stage, she's the opposite: showy and contrived. The result is an imbalance in performances that seriously undermines the drama between an unrepentant offender and his lost victim.
Michelle Williams tears up the stage, literally and figuratively, in 'Blackbird'...the 'Brokeback Mountain' actress lurches from defiance to pleading, sputtering rage to romantic desperation, offering up an unforgettable portrait of a doomed soul who has long since lost agency over her own emotions. It's a half-terrifying, half-thrilling high-wire act that leaves the actress visibly exhausted -- and the audience in awe...directed here by Joe Mantello ('The Humans'), 'Blackbird' is an unrelenting, unapologetically grim vision. But whether this 90-minute piece is actually saying anything new or original about the human condition -- or simply rubbing our noses in the muck of it all -- is tough to discern.
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