Review: STUPID F*CKING BIRD Tackles Modern Milieu in Australian Premiere at Metanoia Theatre

The saying goes that there are no new ideas. Originality in the age of mass-production and population density and exponential destruction of every natural muse known to great artists, has been shot mid-flight. Originality was shot through the heart, plummeted into an oil-drenched ocean, washed upon a beach of glass and needles only to be eaten by an ice addict and made into a meme.

Needless to say, Stupid F*cking Bird, the premiere production of Lightning Jar Theatre is like crack for nihilists. Coincidentally, it is also the Australian premiere of the show created by American Aaron Posner as an adaptation of the famed Chekhov play, The Seagull. What was surely a coup for Lighting Jar they have pulled off with quality and sincerity, equal parts respect for the work and skill to draw more relevance and accessibility to a new audience. The most volatile safe bet possible for theatre lovers, and possibly also theatre haters!

With The Seagull written over a century ago, adaptations like these are proof that a plot centred around a love-knot and the overindulgences of creative professionals never gets old. Con is an aspiring writer presenting his first performance featuring his childhood sweetheart Nina, for his family and friends. These include the power couple of his mother Emma and her boy-toy Trig, uncle Sorn, his best friend Dev who loves Mosh, and Mosh who loves Con. Over the course of years this crash and burn of egos, desires and sanities makes quite an inquisitive albeit solemn remark on our first-world culture's social, cultural, political and ideological flaws. All the while, keeping the audience in peals of laughter, both jubilant and pseudo-uncomfortable. Theatre at its most potent.

It is no surprise with the collective experience of Lightning Jar's production team, they were able to lure quite a solid cast together, delivering wire-walking performances with such authenticity you found yourself questioning if they were even acting!

Doubling as performer and producer, Hannah Greenwood was fantastically bitter as Mosh, but had a keen sense of when to play for lightness or insight. Her musical input worked well for sound aesthetic and a break from the density of Posner's script. Dylan Watson as Dev, who also served as a producer/performer of the work, teemed with energy and the hyperphysical elements of his character elevated the liberties many of the others took in scenes with him. Carla Bonner as Emma showed fantastic chops through the difficulties in Emma's relationships; the chemistry between her and Con was sub-zero, while the emotionally abusive notes between her and Trig were riveting textually and physically. In the role of Trig, Nathan Sapsford had the least consistency, although that's common for the straight man in the absurdist genre. The script, costuming, interactivity all made him unnecessarily difficult to connect with, let alone like. David Ross Paterson was delightful and familiar in the role of observant older male squeezing as much from the last notes in his narrative.

Two standout performances in the piece came from the central couple. Agonising though his storyline was for its addictions and skimming over mental illness as a theme, Michael Mack as the lead of sorts in Con, bore the weight of the text like a champion and navigated the fourth-wall breaking well, with a ripe sense for drama. Cait Spiker stood out in the play's meatiest role, the blossoming winsome fiend of Nina. Spiker drew captivatingly clean lines from girl to woman, dotty to deranged, virgin to vixen, and never phoned in a line where in some moments the script and direction gave room. Fantastic alone, Mack and Spiker also were a compelling watch together, particularly the moments surrounding the show's title. Director Peter Blackburn appears to have made distinct choices about how each character took their own moments, and idiosyncrasies, and turned up the volume on each. There were some points where the conversational overlaps bottlenecked and physicality could have been more potent, but then these were never supposed to be a group of characters who meshed or flowed easily or well together.

Lighting Jar are clearly prepared to work into the detail of a production, and this showed in the even flow of Abbie-Lea Hough's set. Keeping space open for interpretation, using props and costumes to mark time and place changes, was a move both smart and effective for the pace of the piece. The beauty of the play, and the performers Lightning Jar accrued, is that it may have even standed minimalizing further. Claire Healy's original score wove in well through the story, and made for a nice element brought in where many producers would rather pay for existing tracks and leave the creative opportunity unfulfilled sound-wise. Linton Wilkinson's sound design made for great special effects. All in all as solid a production team with a strong sense for what deepens audience engagement.

With this, Lightning Jar are off to an excitingly strong start, which as their stable develops is sure to see them become a mainstay of gumptious, talented performance work in the Melbourne artistic community. Stupid F*cking Bird is the play you wish was out there every time you have to sit through a "reimagining", or a "recital", indeed any performance work you wish would drop the act and realise we're all just players.

Tickets available here.

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