OnStage: Too close to home

Actors, even those as accomplished as Stephen Yoakam, are loath to turn down work. The stage is an often capricious mistress. Yet Yoakam was hesitant when he was asked to consider the part of Ray in "Blackbird," which opens today in a Pillsbury House Theatre production at the Guthrie Theater.

"I am the father of a 12-year-old," he said during a recent rehearsal break. "I don't know if I want to play this man who had a sexual relationship with a 12-year-old girl."

Producer Faye Price and director Stephen DiMenna worked on Yoakam, asking the actor to give the role of the sexual predator a second and third look. Eventually, he relented, agreeing to play a character that he does not want his daughter to see.

"At first, I was, like, 'Ick, yuck. I don't want to be inside that guy,'" he said. "But as I read it and reread, I came to understand him a little more. Ray has more than one side -- he is not a monster. I do and I don't condemn him. But I don't condone his actions."

Scottish playwright David Harrower based "Blackbird" on the 2003 case of American Toby Studebaker, who took up with a British 12-year-old he met online.

In the two-person play, characters Ray and Una lived on the same street. After meeting at a barbecue, they became involved, which led to a prison term for him. They are reuniting 15 years after their illicit involvement. She is an adult. He has taken a new name.

"What he did was wrong, no question, but I found something in him that's likable," said Yoakam.

"He's dragging the low end [of life] -- he's not living high off the hog. He has tried to put his life back together, and that's a good thing."

Pillsbury House Theatre has carved out a reputation for hard-charging, issues-steeped plays. "Blackbird" fits into that repertory. "If it doesn't involve rape or murder, do you think Pillsbury House is interested?" said DiMenna, whose other credits at Pillsbury House include Tracy Letts' "Bug" and Stephen Adly Guirgis' "Jesus Hopped the A Train." "We're going to have some interesting talk-backs on this one."

Language of poetry, pain

The language in the play is like streets in an incomplete but abandoned subdivision. It has a lot of cul-de-sacs and sentences that trail off.

"It's written like poetry, without punctuation," said Tracey Maloney, who plays Una. "You have to find your way in it, just like Una has to find her way here. The playwright totally trusts [the actors] that we will do right by him."

For Yoakam, the role recalls other villains of the theatrical repertory, including Iago in "Othello" and Eddie Carbone in "A View From the Bridge."

"Every actor has to find something that's likable about a character," said Yoakam. "I'm still not resolved with what he did. That's why I first said, Jesus, I don't think I want to go there. It's a great play, but the character is unappealing. You have to find a way into what about him that's not monstrous."

Yoakam said that he is glad that Ray "has built up tremendous defenses from prison and treatment and the law. There are absolute lines that he knows he cannot cross," he said. "He cannot be in a room with a woman with a door closed by himself. He has to keep the door open. There are things that he knows he has to do in order to remain free in the world."

"It's really about paring down to the soul," said fearless actor Maloney. "You make assumptions about being a victim and who has power, but it's complicated."

Rohan Preston • 612-673-4390