Birdy

Adapted by MacArthur "Genius" Grant winner Naomi Wallace from the acclaimed 1978 novel by William Wharton, BIRDY tells the story of a man undone by the horrors of World War II and the friend who tries to guide him back to earth. "This is the story of two working-class boyhood friends, the earthy Al and the aptly nicknamed Birdy, who is obsessed with birds: He accumulates and tries to emulate them, talks to them, even has a sort of love affair with one of them, and attempts by various outlandish and often perilous means - including weird wings made mostly of tin - to replicate their flight. Girls, despite Al's suasions, do not interest Birdy. Now, at the conclusion of World War II, both guys are wounded: Sergeant Al physically, with a shattered jaw for which his face is bandaged; Private Birdy psychically, retreating into the squatting posture of an unfledged bird and espousing an obstinate mutism. Birdy's medical officer in a Kentucky military hospital, Major White, has Al transferred there, in the hope that he may coax his old chum back to normality. The play shuttles between boyhood adventures and misadventures in which Birdy tries to take wing, and hospital scenes in which he cowers speechless with a haunted stare, while Al, when not being hectored by White, strives desperately to animate his unresponsive friend. The way the play moves backward and forward in time, but turns space into a superimposition comprising both past and present, is quite ingenious and ... allows six good actors to strut their wares. " -New York Magazine "Adaptor Naomi Wallace remains faithful to the book's World War II setting and concentrates on the puzzled homoeroticism of the relationship between the central duo, Al and Birdy. This reaches its peak when the latter - locked in a mental hospital, imagining himself to be a bird - silently demands to be fed avian-style from Al's mouth, leading to the most disturbing male-to-male kiss many of us are ever likely to see on stage. " -The Financial Times (London)