REVIEW: When myth is fact

Editor's Note: If you enjoy reading this, please consider a contribution to our Indiegogo campaign. When I settled into my seat at Nimbus Theatre, I was entirely prepared to see a play. I was expecting to see a playish sort of play, as adaptations of classical mythology can be. Despite a personal fondness for the Greeks, I have seen too many contemporary interpretations that seem tragically destined to be an epic bore, dreary, pompous, arch, and a poorly chosen vehicle for aging leading men. But I was definitely game to see this If We Were Birds. In addition to being thoroughly impressed by the production company 20% Theatre over the past several seasons, I was curious as to whether playwright Erin Shields had somehow been able to navigate the murk and shadows of a particularly grim, nearly forgotten tale. With precision, without hesitation, Shields slits the belly of this story to show us the gory workings of the humans we are, and the bloody world that humans have made. This adaptation of myth isn’t another go-round with the familiar program copy about how this new adaptation Speaks to The Enduring Power of Theater, to The Universality of Story, the way the myths remain forever relevant because those Greeks sure did hit the ol’ nail on the head. The play, certainly, is relevant. It is timely. It is universal. But that is because it’s not an interpretation of the past. Shields didn’t have to go dredging around in cultural history for “source material.” If We Were Birds is about rape. It’s not a play. It isn’t an old story, isn’t a myth. It’s a fact. * “Nothing has changed, except the size of our fear.” The play is drawn from the story of sisters Procne and Philomela, told in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. It’s a story in the strangely rich tradition of rape narratives, which, the program notes, are always “littering them with the bodies of women who were raped and then immediately leave the story, whether by murder, suicide, or merely a change of narrative focus. So it is remarkable that even in Ovid, Philomela and Procne survive to the end of the story.” From the beginning, the traditional role of the Chorus is fragmented—instead of dull, intoning warnings about the inevitable tragedy ahead, we hear a sharp, sibilant whisper of the words, speak it, hissing from the corners of the stage. The lights come up on the young Philomela, who slowly unfurls herself and her tongue, getting used to the feel of it in her mouth, gaining mastery of the words and sounds she lost when her tongue was cut out. Suzi Gard’s Philomela is a delight—a raw, tender, laughing little girl, and as the prologue becomes the first scene, she’s joined onstage by Jill Iverson, whose performance as Procne shows enormous range, beginning strong and then increasing, over the course of the play, to a shocking force. But in this brief and lovely moment, the sisters tease and chase one another, dare each other to tell secrets, play the way unfrightened, protected girls play—without any awareness of danger in the world. From their playful dip in a palace tub, the scene shifts to the throne room, where Dann Peterson delivers a strong performance as King Pandion. But when the young King Tereus steps into the room, bringing with him a pack of female slaves—“the spoils of war, good King!”—everything shifts. Tereus moves easily into the center of the stage, and the story, emanating a furious power. Ethan Bjelland’s King Tereus could be too much—too toxic, too over the top. But Bjelland’s performance—his controlled, careful portrayal of a character so horrifying—is exquisite. Part wolf, part warrior, part boy, Bjelland brings the most deadly of our human manifestations to the surface—and remains, perhaps unforgivably, humane. “War is not for amusement,” he spits, pacing across the stage, arguing with Procne, now his wife. “It is like meat, like water—like you.” And he almost, it seems, devours her whole. And during the most astonishingly choreographed scene of the play as he and Philomela battle for the possession and command of her body, Tereus says “I feel it in my teeth first.” They fight brutally, she screaming, he livid and intent upon the rape that will come, “I know when it’s going to happen. But why does it always start with my teeth?” As he rapes her, he says to himself, “It’s not me, it’s my blood.” He repeats it, repeats it again. Then he rapes her, again. The brutality of this scene is almost unbearable. The rage breaks eventually. Something collapses in the chest; one reminds oneself to breathe. There, looking at the two actors—she on the floor, he staring out into the audience—there is a breathtaking feeling of grief. Then Gard screams, “I don’t care about your blood! . . . I won’t stop screaming, I won’t stop saying the words, again and again and again…” He cuts out her tongue. Watching, I thought to myself, “Oh, that’s right. That’s the myth, of course. It’s the one where he cuts out her tongue.” I had forgotten it was a myth. I had, in fact, forgotten it was a play Because it was not. It was not a myth, and not a play. It was a fact. Rather, it is. * The play’s final scenes I will leave you to see, and I hope you will see it. The production by 20% Theatre is remarkable, from the simple, effective design to the acting and the direction by Lee Hannah Conrads. The Chorus is made up of varied, very strong performers, and their role in the play is too complex to lay out here, but they are worth your while. And the actors--young, full of promise—will haunt you. They gaze straight into the depths of this piece without flinching, and they allow you to do the same, and by it you may well be changed.