40 min | Drama | Mature
Oh, boy. OK. Let’s start with the basics. Blackout is a play by a contemporary Scottish playwright, Davey Anderson. It tells the story of a teenage boy who “has been pushed to the edge”, commits a terrible act of violence under the influence of several substances and lots of bullying, and wakes up in jail.
The play is narrated in the second person, with the idea that the protagonist is telling the audience that there but for the grace of god, any one of us could have become an angsty young white supremacist, which I honestly just don’t really think is the case. It also entails telling the audience not only what is happening but what they should think and feel about it at every moment, in no uncertain terms (“That was the night you died inside”).
The story is painted in unbearably broad strokes (Grandpa was the only one who understood, but then he got the cancer! Nazis really just need a big hug!). Blackout is based on a true story, and I do know that life itself can often be cliché and unsubtle, but I still left feeling like someone ought to go to prison for savagely beating me over the head with all this maudlin exposition.
Martine Berthiaume, who plays James’ long-suffering but loving mother, was the most effective part of this production for me. The program for the play notes that she “had always been interested in the arts, [but] life happened and she put her passion aside [until] midlife crisis hit her and she decided to go back to her love of performing”. She lends the play what I found to be its only moments of tenderness and human-kindness, and I hope that she continues with acting.
Blackout is the first play by Lolita [ew] Productions, and I do feel a twinge of remorse for being hard on this earnest young company. It’s really the play itself that offends me, rather than its production, which did the best it could with execrably trite material. My worst Fringe experience last year was also a play about prison, and I profoundly resent privileged folks using the criminal justice system as a metaphor for white boy angst. It’s gonna take a lot more than this to give me a Kumbaya moment with Nazis.
Blackout, by Davey Anderson, is playing at BYOV B – Cafe Alt (60 University), Saturday, June 21st, 8:00PM, Tuesday, June 24th, 6:30PM, Friday, June 27th, 8:00PM, Saturday, June 28th, 8:00PM, and Sunday, June 29th, 2:00PM.
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