THEATRE REVIEW: IF WE WERE BIRDS
23 Apr'10

‘Birds’ a modern twist on Greek myth

JOHN COULBOURN - QMI Agency
Rating: 3 out of 5

It is in the very nature of myths that they endure — their endurance fueled by at least a flicker of inextinguishable and universal humanity that burns through the ages and illuminates the human condition.

So, on a certain level, all playwright Erin Shields had to do to transform Ovid’s mythic and hugely tragic tale of Tereus, Procne and Philomela into a piece of contemporary stagecraft was fan that flicker into an open flame. Which is sort of what she has done in IF WE WERE BIRDS— a reworking of her Summerworks' triumph that opened on the Tarragon mainstage Wednesday, produced in association with Groundwater Productions.

But she hasn’t stopped there.

Under the direction of Alan Dilworth, she has brought Ovid’s horrific tale to pseudo-modern life. In the tale, Procne (Phillipa Domville) and Philomela (Tara Rosling) — daughters of Athens King Pandion (David Fox) — are driven to tragedy when Procne is given in marriage to the warrior king Tereus (Geoffrey Pounsett) as reward for services rendered to Pandion’s kingdom. And though Procne is happy in her marriage and quickly produces a son and heir for her husband, she finds that Thebes is a long, long way from Athens and she yearns for the companionship of her younger sister.

Driven by his wife’s importuning, Tereus takes time from planning his next battle to travel back to Athens to bring Philomelo back to Thebes for a visit. But on the voyage home, Tereus becomes enamoured with the innocent and beautiful Philomela — and once they make shore, he takes her — not to her sister, but to an isolated cottage where he rapes and horribly mutilates her, telling his wife her beloved sister has been lost at sea.

When Procne learns the truth, however, she rescues Philomela and they cook up a pot of revenge so horrible that all an invisible pantheon of Greek gods can do is transform all three of them into birds.

It goes without saying that this is an old tale, filled with archaic social mores and attitudes — not the least of which is the whole notion that the will to rape is something inborn in males of the species. But even though she apparently has no quibble with that old notion, Shields attempts to give it a modern twist with contemporary costumes and the introduction of a traditional Greek chorus in international guise (Barbara Gordon, Stephanie Jung, Daniela Lama, Shannon Perrault and an increasingly mannered Karen Robinson) — each of whom has been sexually brutalized in more modern conflicts.

Simply and creatively staged in complicity with designers Jung-Hye Kim (sets and costumes), Kimberly Purtell (lights) and Thomas Ryder Payne (sound), IF WE WERE BIRDS features some solid performances, most notably from Rosling and Domville, doing a wonderful job of defying their obvious maturity in the play’s opening scenes of childhood innocence. Pounsett, for his part, does his level best but sadly comes off more as an archaically armed security guard than a warrior king.

No matter, for in the end, they are all undone by a ponderous script that never really comes to modern life. While even a Tarragon audience might contain one or two people who haven’t yet realized rape as an act of war is one of mankind’s most grotesque inventions, they are the only ones likely to find illumination in this earnest endeavour.

As for the rest — only ancient Greeks are likely to pay Charon’s fare, knowing they’re bound for hell.