If you are as curious as I to see how Conor McPherson’s adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s short story “The Birds” stacks up against Alfred Hitchcock’s scary and much discussed, if also inscrutable, film version, then head over to 59E59 where, in the,ir tiniest venue, you are squeezed into a tiny open space to feel the claustrophobia and the dread experienced by the play’s three characters. I must admit that I am not familiar with the short story (written in 1953) but have seen and enjoyed the film (1963) numerous times. The first thing you have to accept is that there is only a very little overlap in story, concept or style between the film and this otherwise cleverly minimalist staging by director Stefan Dzeparoski for his Birdland Theater and first seen at Origin’s 1st Irish Festival 2016.
Three excellent actors are playing just four roles and like the film they are holed up in a tightly boarded house that is under siege from vicious attacking birds of all kinds. Evidently birds are out to get us humans and have gathered their forces all over the world. To be sure it’s that rare species known as science-fiction theater, but what has been staged is theatrically compelling, if not always comprehensible. Don’t expect to recognize any of the characters or situations that you remember from the film but simply accept McPherson’s version as curious as any to get your own feathers aflutter.
Taking refuge together are a big hulking bruiser Nat (Tony Naumovski) who suffers from occasional mental seizures and an unnerved novelist Diane (Antoinette LaVecchia) who doesn’t quite trust Tony but worries more about Julie (Mia Hutchinson-Shaw) the strange, sexy and unsettling young woman who seeks shelter and possibly more from Nat.
More intriguing than the erotically charged goings on is the production design by Konstantin Roth (set) David J. Palmer (video) , Ien Denio (sound) that surround the closely compacted audience with disquieting noises and a visual eeriness that helps to contain the mood of this occasionally provocative 90-minute production. The three actors share the same tense world, presumably a farm house in New England, and interact extraordinarily well under the circumstances. If you don’t look for anything close to the short story or film version, you might just find all kinds of ways to interpret what is essentially an allegory about humanity out of control and nature in revolt.
