OBSERVER: Birds
Two women lounge in deck chairs, staring out to sea. This is Birds, presented as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival at The Beckett Theatre, Malthouse.
Shayna (Alex Hines), a wealthy five-time divorcée, and Beverley (Sarah Stafford), a suburban mother of twelve boys, bond over cocktails and cigarettes, as if Kath Day-Knight had met Prue or Trude and become firm friends.
Shayna, resplendent in a Camilla caftan, recounts the story of her family.
All were wiped out in an unfortunate blimp accident. “Aviation and antiques do not mix.”
Beverley, a former “three-time Ms Jacaranda winner”, is equally resplendent in a knockoff Camilla caftan, “handmade by a child in China”.
With enormous camp wigs and lots of bling, Shayna and Beverley chat and gossip their way through the approaching climate apocalypse.
Downing margaritas, they listen to the radio and speculate about the secret sound on the Smyle and Smacki-O show and the “multi-sensory labyrinth” that is Holey Moley putt-putt golf.
As the effects of climate change become more obvious, the sea is drying up, and birds are falling from the sky, the women slip into bikinis, reapply sunscreen, and watch houses crumble and fall into the sea on distant headlands. The narrative grows increasingly surreal as it unfolds.
They debate whether Beverley’s four-year-old son is waving or drowning far beyond the shark net.
At regular intervals, the women reapply sunscreen and work on their tans.
Gloriously horrific, the grotesquery continues as Birds moves into the post-apocalyptic realm of comic horror.
Witty, bold, with great physical comedy as well as punchlines, Stafford and Hines deliver comedy gold in this nihilistic nightmare.
Review by Kathryn Keeble