KRCB-FM: Second Row Center

At a post-show Q & A following the opening night performance of Main Stage West’s Blackbird, director David Lear stated he felt that one of theatre’s responsibilities is to make an audience “a little uncomfortable.” He more than succeeds with this production. The lights come up and through the windows of a darkened employee break room we see two people arguing in a hallway. The door to the breakroom opens, the lights are turned on and the two individuals enter the room. Not much is said, but it is obvious there is history between these two. Are they estranged father and daughter? Ex-lovers? Siblings? It’s soon revealed that the fifty-something Ray (John Shillington) had a sexual relationship with the twenty-something Una (Sharia Pierce). However, the “relationship” occurred when Ray was forty and Una was twelve. Uncomfortable yet? Well, it won’t get any easier over the course of the show’s uninterrupted eighty minutes as the conversation runs the gamut from their first “innocent” meeting to the gra