Review: THE BORN-AGAIN CROW at Buddies In Bad Times

In Caleigh Crow’s THERE IS VIOLENCE AND THERE IS RIGHTEOUS VIOLENCE AND THERE IS DEATH OR, THE BORN-AGAIN CROW at Buddies in Bad Times, rage is the thing with feathers. The production, a collaboration between Buddies and Native Earth Performing Arts, celebrates the flame of righteous anger when powerful people suppress others, deferring to systems rather than offering even the slightest bit of relief or kindness that is in their power to give.

Crow’s Governor General’s award-winning script introduces us to Beth (Tara Sky), a young Indigenous woman so burnt out from her soul-crushing job at Real Canadian Superstore that she’s decided to burn it down in return. Sullenly moving back in with her eccentric mother Francine (Cheri Maracle), Beth doesn’t want to talk about her breakdown, but news travels as fast as the crow flies. Mom’s heard rumours that Beth went on a rampage inside the Superstore where she works—or, rather, worked, because she’s been dismissed.

Beth’s creative destruction, including burying her boss in pantry staples, demolishing a display of cans, and pinning a steak to a door like a lycanthropian Martin Luther, has earned her the fear and derision of those around her. The sole exception seems to be neighbour and former flame Tanner (Dan Mousseau), who dramatically leaps over the fence and several of Beth’s boundaries to flirt with danger whenever he’s bored. Worried Francine just wants Beth to heal, providing her with a set of hanging bird feeders. Annoyingly, this meditative means to care for others seems to be working—and then one crow (Madison Walsh) thanks her in words Beth can understand.

Shannon Lea Doyle’s expansive backyard set with an increasingly elaborate tree of bird feeders is an oasis in the midst of director Jessica Carmichael’s punk aesthetic, costume designer Asa Benally outfitting the crow population in black leather pierced with patches and safety pins.

Beth, dressed in the Depression Special of gray t-shirt and cargo pants, rests uneasily in the middle between shutdown and tear down. On one side, the chichi neighbourhood Homeowner’s Association tries to sneer her family into respectability, and on the other the anarchic seduction of the talkative crow brings gifts that are shiny but hazardous, a piece of mirror or a rusty screw. Walsh’s warm-voiced crow speaks with a dangerous smile and magnetic focus, promising Beth an escape from the stifling world of capitalism if she can find it in herself to continue to burn.

Mousseau does impressive quadruple duty as forces that seek to stifle Beth’s spirit in different ways, from the childhood friend/annoyance and high school lover who still wants to possess her, to the uptight head of the HoA so obsessively concerned with bird excrement on his expensive car he’s willing to wage war. He impassively stonewalls with corporate-speak as the hypocritical store manager who drove Beth over the edge, and condescends and twists Beth’s story as a female Francophone news reporter who operates on social media, doing bubbly human interest bites while flipping her hair against her bright pink pantsuit.

Much like the furious crow, the one-act play flies by, only gaining speed during its 100 minutes. The team keeps things visually interesting with some impressive stage magic, such as a scene where Beth proves her can-shooting prowess. Design surprises reminiscent of Buddies’ season opener Roberto Zucco establish a stylized, heightened reality that keeps the eventual promised violence in the realm of satisfying fantasy for the audience despite its reality for the characters. The messier it gets, the better.

Crow’s offbeat, quirky writing sometimes feels young in the way it deals with complex subjects and telegraphs emotions. A generation older, Maracle’s fascinating and hilariously awkward Francine, for example, begs for a bit more attention and development. But that youth also brings freshness and excitement to Beth’s actions, with the climax inviting the viewer to join the revenge party. It’s a cry of rage against systems that glory in their own impenetrability, walled-off spaces that don’t allow entrance, and people who trample over the barriers we try to erect in return to preserve what little we have inside.

Of course, venting our frustrations isn’t going to completely change the way the world operates under late-stage capitalism.

But if we can’t change everything, the play asks, can we change anything?

Maybe it’s time to go a little apeshit…or, in this case, birdshit.