in situ: presents: Birds

Friday March 22 and March 23
St Andrew’s Hall, Chesterton
8pm
Running time: 80 minutes approx.
Tickets: £12/10 (concession)

NB: for this performance the audience is seated throughout

Birds

a new work by in situ:

This new performance by in situ: is about birds and the relationship humans have with birds

A relationship shot through with with ambivalence.
A relationship of desire and horror.

birds represent the desire to fly, the desire for transcendance, an escape from earth and the pull of gravity. Icarus and Sweeney.
Proust thought Giotto’s angels were an extinct species of bird
Messiaen wrote down birdsong to make concentration camp music

Virginia Woolf heard birds speaking Greek

But birds are also horrific.

They attack school children in small town America.
They peck carrion
They fly into windows
They predict death
A lot of people can’t stand them.

birds is an ensemble piece dominated by movement and monologue and music;

Humans trying to grow wings,
trying to fly,
crashing,
getting up again,
flying and crashing

A live piano accompaniment plus a visceral soundtrack

Monologues about
birds and death;
seeing angels in Padua
Priests poisoning pigeons
planes flying into buildings
Re-enacting Hitchcock (the most frightening bits)

birds is an exciting new departure for this most adventurous of theatre groups.