Birdland

Birdland
By Simon Stephens. Directed by Leticia Caceres. MTC. Southbank Theatre Melbourne. 6-27 June, 2015.

Birdland, it is suggested in the program notes to the MTC production, is a contemporary take on "be careful what you wish for" - the cost of fame, the corrupting effects of success. Main character Paul is a rock singer catapulted to stardom and we watch as his career unravels. To this end, the program also includes a couple of interesting articles on how fleeting fame is for young rock bands and a meditation on how Matt Damon copes with celebrity. But if the aim of the play was to present Paul as a decent bloke whom fame has corrupted, it really didn't come across like that. As written, he seemed to be a narcissistic psychopath, and while stardom has given him carte blanche to treat everyone around him without the slightest regard for their feelings, one could be forgiven for thinking that he would have been this way all along. Indeed, his father tells him towards the end of the play that he hasn't really changed, and even his best friend and band member Johnny, who has stuck with him since both of them were struggling pub musos, can no longer remember why (Johnny's loyalty is a real mystery).

 

 

The play presents us with Paul's deteriorating mental state - he becomes increasingly confused and paranoid, and this is well captured by the often surreal staging, where you're not entirely sure whether characters are present in reality or merely in Paul's mind. A particularly striking moment employed cardboard cut outs of Paul in a nightclub scene, with characters interacting with these while the 'real' Paul stood in the midst of all the chaos. This effectively captured the sense of unravelling that is at the core of the piece.

As Paul, Mark Leonard Winter performed the demanding part with plenty of energy, alternately howling at the audience, freaking out at Johnny/Jenny/whomever, and remaining constantly perplexed at the reaction his callous indifference to other people's feelings provoked (it was this inability of the character to feel anything remotely approaching empathy that clearly marked out his psychopathic nature). Socratis Otto, as his long-suffering mate Johnny, was the focus of most of the audience's sympathy, given Paul's unredemptive nature. Anna Samson was very impressive in her multiple roles and particularly as Marnie, a character pivotal to the plot despite her appearance in only a couple of scenes. Bert Labonte, Peta Sergeant and Michala Banas also had multiple parts and of these, Labonte's charged performance as Marnie's father, Sergeant's warm characterisation of Jenny and Banas' comic turn as DC Richter were most memorable.

It is a powerful play, confrontational in its naked depiction of utter self-absorption, but as mentioned, without any positive resolution. Paul throughout remains incommunicable, unaware of what he is doing to others, and even at the end he clearly still doesn't "get it". So the only 'moral satisfaction' we as the audience get is not through witnessing anything akin to his redemption - rather, we are placed in the uncomfortable position of sitting through two hours of watching this man self-destruct while he remains oblivious.

Alex Paige

Images: Mark Leonard Winter (Paul), Socratis Otto (Johnny) and Anna Samson (Marnie) & Michala Banas and Mark Leonard Winter. Photographer: Jeff Busby.

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