by Christine Okon
Rating: ****
(For an explanation of TheatreStorm’s rating scale, click here.)

“Birdheart” has the simplest of beginnings: a single egg lit warmly on a table covered with sand. Lovely, evocative, uncomplicated string music fills the room. We hear the sound of gentle waves lapping a shore. We watch intently, not knowing what to expect.

Soon, the egg begins to crack and move. Something is trying hard to get out. It is not a bird but a person, or rather, an animated sheet of brown wrapping paper that is shaped and manipulated to look and move like a person, much as a passing cloud might look like a horse.

The forces that do the shaping and moving are puppeteer-musicians Julian Crouch and Saskia Lane. Their presence is evident, not hidden in black like Noh theater koken, and the audience marvels and applauds at the things they do with this intriguing medium.

The paper person struggles to gain footing and soon realizes it is alone. It finds a small table and chair on the beach and arranges them to create an invitation to tea, complete with two small cups. We feel this creature’s loneliness, its sense of being earthbound and heavy. It seems stuck until it is enlightened (literally, a backlight throwing a shadow) to realize it has a tiny bird in its heart. The joy is palpable as the paper creature lifts up and is pulled down, lifts up and is pulled down until it finally transforms into a bird, from the same amazing piece of paper.

The bird gains wings which are fragile, skeletal paper. The design was inspired by Chris Jordan’s harrowing photos of baby albatrosses who starved to death with crops full of plastic detritus that their parents found and fed to their chicks.

The bird lays a single egg, tries to brood it but gives up. It flies away, abandoning the egg, and we are brought back to the beginning with single egg sitting in the spotlight. And I cried.

“Birdheart”reminds us of the profound simplicity of form, story, and emotion in classic Polish animation.

After the performance, Lane and Crouch met with the audience to answer questions about the source of inspiration (“we tried to be open to the accident of something, to be in chaotic collaboration with the world”), logistics, material (ordinary brown wrapping paper), music (by Saskia Lane, Julian Crouch and Mark Stewart) and meaning that shaped the piece, and even invited the curious to see the puppetry design up close. They plan to bring “Birdheart” to other countries, inviting local musicians to perform with that country’s instruments and music, making it a truly universal endeavor.

Prior to the performance, Lane and Crouch playfully turned each other into puppets, and performed a banjo bass duo. How they did this is a surprise worth waiting for.

Magical and intriguing, “Birdheart” helps us to believe that an ordinary brown paper bag can dance, fly, and have a soul that resonate with ours.

“Birdheart” plays at Z Space through April 17. For further information, click here.

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“Birdheart” by Saskia Lane, Julian Crouch, and Mack Stewart was commissioned by VisionInto Art and National Sawdust’s Curator in Residence program, and produced locally by Z Space and Piece by Piece Productions.

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