SARASOTA – Aaron Posner’s 2013 deconstruction of Chekov’s famous work, The Seagull, won the Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Play or Musical and received much well-deserved critical acclaim. Director Vincent Carlson Brown manages a very worthy production of this groundbreaking play currently enjoying a successful run at Urbanite Theatre in downtown Sarasota.
Titled, Stupid F#!@ing Bird, the play deftly manages to examine Chekov’s story through a modern lens. Not unlike Chekov’s other works, there is much suffering courtesy of love unrequited, framed this time in the context of questions regarding the validity of art and various forms.
Conrad is an experimental dramatist whose mother, an aging actress named Emma, is dating a successful mainstream writer named Trigorin. Conrad’s rebellion against tradition and quest for new forms are clearly influenced by the middlebrow plays of his mother and is expressed through the performance of his young girlfriend and aspiring actress Nina.
Summer Dawn Wallace and Dan Higgs. Photo by Cliff Roles
FSU/Asolo Conservatory alum Joseph McGranaghan is wonderful as Conrad, giving him a feckless intensity that suits the play's contradictory nature. Former Florida Studio Theatre intern Cindy De La Cruz is riveting as Nina, endowing her with more depth and presence than it might seem Posner imagined. Indeed, De La Cruz provides some of the most memorable diatribes of the evening. Her intensity is matched on many occasions by Tess Hogan’s Emma. Local theater fans will recognize Hogan from her many years with the Asolo Rep.
Joseph McGranaghan and Cindy De La Cruz. Photo by Cliff Roles.
Nina quickly falls for the much older Trigorin (Harry Lipstein) to predictably-disastrous results that include Emma discovering their affair and Conrad attempting suicide. Conrad finds little comfort in the fact that Mash (Summer Dawn Wallace, who shows off some impressive musical talents) pines away for him, while his friend Dev, (FSU/Asolo Conservatory alum Zak Wilson) does the same for her.
Zak Wilson and Summer Dawn Wallace. Photo by Cliff Roles.
Local theater luminary Dan Higgs is splendid as Emma’s brother Sorin, a 70 year-old doctor who serves as the story’s conscience. The play breaks the fourth wall on many occasions, sometimes openly mocking itself in the process, but all in a way that forces the audience to consider all of the sometimes competing perspectives. Despite deconstructing a play from the late 1800s, Stupid F@!#ing Bird is groundbreaking work that hits its intended mark, center bulls-eye. It runs through March 13. Visit the Urbanite website for more info.
Comments
No comments on this item
Only paid subscribers can comment
Please log in to comment by clicking here.