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 material is self-evidently dark but the presentation is unrelentingly glum and lifeless..the play feels too severe and clandestine for such a big house...But the reason why audiences are drawn to the drama is because of the two plumb roles that offer a pair of performers the ultimate emotional tussle...Williams and Daniels are more than up to the challenge of going down the play's very dark road...And it just so happens that Daniels and Williams have both been working long enough as actors that we can picture what they would have looked like together. That my mind even went there is a testament to the play's dangerous pull. B
Shock ought to have a shelf life, the way horror movies lose their power after repeat viewings...Yet years later, there I was at the Belasco, craning forward, then recoiling, as Jeff Daniels and Michelle Williams clawed at each other's psyches and bodies, playing ex-lovers or, to be precise, a pedophile and his victim...Blackbird is a comfortless 80-minute reckoning of arrested time and soiled innocence...Vocally, Williams is doing something interesting . She speaks in a halting, affected manner, as if Una has been rehearsing these speeches in her head for years, a girl trying to sound like an adult...As when he played Ray nine years ago, Daniels brilliantly rages, bargains, stonewalls and implodes...Time has been shattered for these walking ghosts, and we are transfixed watching them cut their hands, sifting through the shards.
2007 | Off-Broadway |
Original Off-Broadway Production Off-Broadway |
2016 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2016 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | Jeff Daniels |
2016 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | Michelle Williams |
2016 | Drama League Awards | Outstanding Revival of a Broadway or Off-Broadway Play | David Harrower |
2016 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Actress in a Play | Michelle Williams |
2016 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Revival of a Play (Broadway or off-Broadway) | Blackbird |
2016 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play | Jeff Daniels |
2016 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play | Michelle Williams |
2016 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Play | Blackbird |
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