BWW Reviews: BIRDMAN Perched and Ready to Take Flight

Marc Ka y's BIRDMAN is a one man show dealing with the fictional exploits of one Augustus Merriweather, a con man whose conscience catches up with him while he plans what appears to be his biggest scam to date. The play has had a handful of runs over the past couple of years, during which there appears to have been some development in refining the script, particularly between the "I Love Durban" festival in 2011 and its run in that city around this time last year. While the play is a solid piece of work, with some beautiful passages of words and several well-crafted key moments, BIRDMAN still needs some fine-tuning to become the transcendent theatrical experience it so clearly aims to be.

BIRDMAN's Augustus is one of those fairground conmen, the kind of man that the Wizard of Oz was revealed to be, who peddles miraculous elixirs that do not work, who has the gift of the gab and who is a master of selling himself to the gullible citizens of the United States of America. Behind that charismatic façade, Augustus is something of a tortured soul, a man in search of identity and existential meaning. His inner conflict is revealed through conversations with his sister, Rebecca, as well as though recorded sequences in which he works on his newest project, a flying machine called "Redemption", which is initially just another one of his schemes to raise enough money to escape to New York and start a new life. But his work on the machine seduces him: he starts to engage with the idea of creating something that has meaning and thus starts on the path to his own redemption.

As indicated above, Kay's script shifts through a series of different modes of language: Augustus's sales pitches, invested with his charm and energy; his monologues that reveal his true intentions to the audience; his conversations with the invisible Rebecca; and the recorded sequences that underscore Augutus's efforts to build his machine. The last-mentioned passages represent the best writing in the play, an achingly lyrical verbalisation of Augustus's thoughts. Other sequences in the script are less successful, particularly sections where the piece digresses from its 1890s setting into an overly contemporary register. The frank "birds and the bees" conversation that Augustus has with his sister, for example, may be amusing, but it is out of step with the period.

In directing his own work, Kay has realised the piece in a workmanlike fashion. Everything shifts smoothly from one beat to the next, but I had the sense that Kay the director was perhaps not hard enough on Kay the playwright in pushing for a more layered and textured text. Sometimes the voice of the playwright and his character compete for dominance in BIRDMAN and this is the kind of situation where a fresh eye - possibly a dramaturg - might be just what the play needs to snap everything into focus.

Kay also needed to guide his performer, Adam Doré, into the deeper moments of the play with a firmer directorial hand. Doré delivers a strong performance and has the talent and the range to carry a play like this, but he never quite captures Augustus's despair in the middle of the play. BIRDMAN already delivers some memorable imagery in its climactic final sequence, but pushing Doré to play a wider and more specific emotional journey in the lead up to that moment of triumph and tragedy will help not only the ending of BIRDMAN to resonate more strongly with audiences, but also help to illuminate its themes.

BIRDMAN is a play that is perched, ready to take flight. It displays some fine wit in its more upbeat passages and has the potential to be a poignant exploration of personal identity, but it is at the precarious editing stage in the theatre making process. This is a time for tenacity and diligence, to shape the piece into the fully realised character study that it could be. Then BIRDMAN will truly soar.

BIRDMAN runs until 6 July in the NG Kerk Hall at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown at the following times: 2 July at 12:00, 3 July at 18:00, 4 July at 16:00, 5 July at 18:00 and 6 July at 10:00. Tickets can be booked at Computicket.

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