THE BIRDS – REVIEW OF BYGONE THEATRE PRODUCTION

 Reviewed by James Karas 

It was a dark and stormy night, sometime in the past, perhaps the 1950’s, in an isolated cottage with no telephone. It is a former family home and a smartly dressed woman arrives with her brother. She is waiting for her husband but he never comes. Her brother has psychological or mental issues or both and the siblings have distant bad memories of their dysfunctional family.

A handyman arrives as does her former boyfriend who happens to be in the neighborhood, accompanied by his girlfriend, maybe fiancée. There are birds attacking people and the menace they pose will be apparent intermittently throughout the play. These birds are vicious people-killers and they strike terror in the house. They may strike at any moment from any direction. By the end of the play three of the five characters will be dead. Who did it? This is a serious mystery.

That is a barebones summary of Emily Dix’s The Birds now playing at Hart Hose Theatre in a production by Bygone Theatre. The play is based on Daphne du Maurier’s 1952 horror story and was the basis of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 movie. This information is not mentioned in the programme but it is available on the Hart House Theatre website.

Anna Douglas, Chad Allen, Daid Harper, Oliver Georgiou and 

Kiera Publicover. Photo: Emily Dix 

When I first saw the title of the play, I thought we would be treated to a synonymous work by Aristophanes. A book by Aristophanes was on the bookshelf but this play has nothing to do with the Ancient Greek.

Now for the people in the house on the dark and stormy night. Daphne Daniels - Mrs. Daniels, she tells us - (Anna Douglas) has a loose tongue, argues with her brother about childhood and parental issues and she reveals that her brother has serious issues but we are never quite clear about what is wrong with him. As she enters the house, there is a radio on, blaring with static and all I wanted to do was scream “turn the damn thing off.” She did but not at my behest.      

Her brother Alex (David Harper) had a bad experience with a young friend but we do not find much more about him  except that he has a few loose screws.     

Mitch (Oliver Georgiou), Daphne’s former lover, is a jerk. He arrives with the hapless Annie Hawthorne (Kiera Publicover) and has a ring to give her or is the ring intended for Daphne? On the aforementioned night, Daphne’s marital vows and the imminent arrival of her husband are swept aside and she and Mitch “make up” or is it “make out.”  

Plot development. Hank (Chad Allen), the handyman, drops dead outside a window and we presume he is done in by the birds. He is just a handyman and is left there and not heard of again. Annie has an accident off stage while in the attic and is taken to a room in the house and not seen again. But she is found dead. Cause of death? You may guess if you want.

In the meantime, Mitch the jerk has reformed his asinine character and that is sufficient to win over Daphne as mentioned above.

There is a problem with the performance that is not all the fault of the actors. The acoustics of Hart House Theatre are such that they swallow conversations or at least words. You prick up you ears, of course, but there are words that you do not hear and they may be crucial ones. In a murder mystery you cannot afford not to hear everything. I did not hear everything of The Birds.

The actors do their duty and deliver their dreary lines on cue without any help from the acoustics. Emily Dix also directs. The birds may be in the title but there is not much you can do to show them. If they are meant to strike terror in the audience, they were not very effective.

The brightly lit kitchen and living room designed by Wes Babcock became dark only for a while when there was a power failure. Were the wires chewed by the birds and then somehow repaired? Perhaps Edward Bulwer-Lytton's entire phrase is not applicable to this play.

In any event, the play does conclude and the mystery is solved, I think. But the play does need some more work.

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The Birds by Emily Dix, in a production by Bygone Theatre, continues until December 10, 2022, at Hart House Theatre, 7 Hart House Circle, Toronto, Ont.  www.bygonetheatre.com or www.tickets.harthouse.ca