by Peter Callaghan

Feral forest dweller, brown and thick-furred,

Finds crumbs of comfort in chirpy wee bird

In 1968, director Peter Brook wrote a groundbreaking manifesto about theatre called The Empty Space in which he categorised the art form in four ways: Deadly, Holy, Rough and Immediate. Deadly being “bad theatre” which “fails to elevate or instruct” and “hardly even entertains”. Think expensively-produced but shallow touring musicals starring cast members from reality television shows. Holy being “The Theatre of the Invisible-Made-Visible” which in trying to give shape to the unknown of dreams, ghosts and consciousness is in the azure blue corner opposite the fiery red corner of kitchen sink realism. Rough being “popular theatre that saves the day” which can be staged anywhere at anytime for anybody and usually involves a high degree of audience interaction. And Immediate which unlike film “always asserts itself in the present” and is charged with an unpredictable and relentless search for the truth.

Bird, by Sita Piearccini and live foley artist David Pollock in association with Feral and Made in Scotland, is more Holy and Immediate than Rough and although slight in terms of substance and running time (45 minutes developed from a three-minute short) is far from Deadly. As for the space – a mound of earth engulfed in fog through which a mute forest dweller slowly unfurls from her foetal position in search of food – is as empty as they come and calls to mind Waiting for Godot’s minimalist stage directions: “A country road. A tree. Evening.” Unfortunately, the spellbinding opening which is loaded with possibility is completely undone by a pre-recorded warning about the use of flash photography and mobile phones. Surely a gentle reminder in the foyer would have sufficed.

Grumbles, however, are soon replaced by rumbles of hunger (and at times laughter) from the belly of the feral forest dweller who although human in shape is more animal in spirit with Sita Pieraccini minimising facial reactions to the odd snarl and squint and transforming her limbs into a series of wing-like flaps and violent pirouettes. Supported by Alberto Santos Bellido and Eleni Thomaidou’s striking lighting design which alternates between garish shafts and intimate pools and David Pollock’s mesmerising soundscape of creaking boughs and scrunching leaves, Bird is a meticulously crafted piece of physical theatre about hunger and longing, loss and renewal, which requires a patient audience to mentally if not physically step inside the world of make-believe and imagine what Brook called “the Invisible-Made-Visible”.

 

Peter Callaghan
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