Go Do This: Stupid Fucking Bird

No, really, that’s the name of the play!

January 11, 2016; 3:11 PM • by Susan Howson

McLean Jesse as Nina, doing her site-specific performance event, to the raised eyebrows of the rest of the cast. Photo by Aaron Sutton.

What it is

Stupid Fucking Bird is a 2013 play by Aaron Posner. It is a modern adaptation of a Chekhov play called The Seagull, which, in itself, gives some major nods to Hamlet.

SFB is quite a name, but it’s supposed to get your attention. The play’s about artists, art, muses, inspiration, relationships, symbols, and being real. Or not real. It gets pretty meta, with lots of breaking down of the fourth wall. If you’re not into potentially being asked a question by a cast member, who may or may not sit next to you during part of the performance–well, you better suck it up! Because it’s happening!

There’s a guy named Conrad who’s annoyed at his mother, an aging actress named Emma. He stages a play–no, a site-specific performance event–starring his girlfriend, Nina. A few other people are involved in various ways, and everyone is in love with the wrong person. Conrad is conflicted, to say the least, as to what art means to him, what he wants out of it, what his mother wants from him, what his girlfriend wants from him, what hope there even is in the world…he’s a perfect Russian protagonist.

However, as the name suggests, the play’s not always so serious. It’s wildly funny at times, with sharp tongues and comebacks and even some funny songs. Songs! And Star Wars references! And one physical joke that will make you laugh very much!

Who’s behind it

The marvelous Quill Theatre!

For the most part, the cast is fantastically good, as they do a lot of complicated blocking and circling around a stage that takes up a fair amount of room (more on that in the next section). They have to project to an audience all around them and be both funny and sad at once.

Katie McCall (Emma) and Jeff Clevenger (Dev) took the cake, or at least my personal cake. The former may have been born to play her role as a passive aggressive wine-in-hand mom of Conrad. And Clevenger was just so authentic as the lovelorn but generally supportive (“kind of a boob,” as he puts it) Dev, that it took me a second to recognize him as Polonius from Quill Theatre’s Hamlet. Guys, he might have been the best person in that play as well! Or at least the best at comic relief.

Leading man Chandler Hubbard played a tortured yet somehow self-satisfied soul well, but also an awkward playwright in a vest and rimless glasses well. I wanted to go up to him afterwards and say very quietly, “Hey, I really enjoyed you as Eeyore in Virginia Rep’s The House at Pooh Corner,” but I didn’t know if mentioning children’s theatre work is considered gauche in congratulatory post-production handshakes. But for real, he was so dismally funny as both Eeyore and Conrad, that I felt I should say something. Never hold your tongue on a compliment, is my motto. I was saved by the fact that he was nowhere to be found, so I fled the lobby before he appeared and I had to make good on that motto. I should definitely get a new one of those.

More so than in all sorts of other productions, direction and set design were absolutely key. Director Jon Kretzu and set designer Tennessee Dixon clearly learned how to collaborate well, because not since Quill Theatre’s American Buffalo have I so much a part of the audience. Maybe even more so, since this cast actually interacted with its voyeurs. Quill obviously is allowing itself to focus a whole lot on site and set. You could almost call this a site-specific performance event.

Where is it

Richmond Triangle Players in Scott’s Addition (1300 Altamont Avenue).

A longish room normally with a stage at one end, RTP got a fascinating makeover as the inside of what felt like a nighttime forest. Stupid Fucking Bird mostly takes place in the lawn of a lake house (they have a couple of scenes within that lake house’s kitchen). There’s a stage in the show, too…an outdoor stage by that very same lake, where Emma used to perform in her heyday. That stage is directly facing the other, larger stage, which serves as the rest of the lawn…it’s really too difficult to explain. The cast moves through you and among you, and you feel a little anxious the whole time that they’re going to trip over your boots. Or that they’re going to ask you a question.

Bare trees reaching up to the ceiling with Christmas lights draped between them–it really felt like a magic place, which makes Dev’s Comic Con T-shirts even funnier.

There’s plenty of street parking in Scott’s Addition, just some one-way streets to be watchful for. And now that the area’s a hotbed of brewing and chatting and coffee-drinking, you have lots of pre-show options. Afterwards, there’s always Fat Dragon just a few blocks away.

When it is

Stupid Fucking Bird runs Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays through January 30th, 2016.

How much it costs

$30, with a student price ($20), a senior price ($25), a RVATA (RAPT) price ($20), and a group price ($25 for 10 , contact Pam Webb at 804.340.0115).

The box office is open Monday through Friday, 1:00 – 5:00 PM. Or purchase online.

Other things to note

The play, as you might imagine, contains very strong language, and one very jumpy surprise. Do not bring your kids. Do not bring anyone with a serious heart condition. Do not panic, everything will be OK.

Also, if you’re likely to complain all night about not being able to see every single thing, this may not be the show for you. You’ll have to move your head around a lot, as the action goes on in the middle of all the seats. At one point the lady next to me was craning her neck towards me just as I was craning my neck towards her, and we kind of ended up gingerly resting our heads against each other for one weird second. Just a warning.

If you don’t go do this, you will…

Miss out on some excellent theatre. That’s all there is to it.

January 11, 2016 3:11 PM · in West of the Boulevard News 0