This past weekend, Grand Valley State University’s theatre program staged “The Birds” at the Haas Center for Performing Arts in the Linn Maxwell Keller Black Box Theatre.
The production, which ran from Feb. 22 to 25, was designed to be a contemporary interpretation of Daphne du Maurier’s horror story and Alfred Hitchcock’s film of the same name.
Adapted for the stage by playwright Conor McPherson, the story focuses on three characters seeking shelter at an abandoned house in the midst of an avian apocalypse. The characters include Diane, a former author who’s journal serves as the source for the play’s narration, Nat, an unstable man with a mysterious past and Julia, a young survivor who becomes infatuated with Nat. As information about their past is revealed throughout the story, the audience’s perception of these characters becomes clouded with judgment, resulting in a hesitancy to trust them.
The show was performed “in the round,” meaning the audience surrounded the stage on all sides. Bridgett Vanderhoof, the production’s director and the publicity and recruitment coordinator for GVSU’s Department of Music, Theatre and Dance (MTD) said the seating arrangement was intentional. Vanderhoof said this arrangement amplified the production’s sense of claustrophobia and paranoia. The audience represented the birds that were trapping the characters inside the house. Vanderhoof also said the audience was able to sympathize with the characters in the house and feel like they were trapped together.
“We (had) seating on all four sides, so it (was) a very immersive experience for both the audience and the actors,” Vanderhoof said. “It feels like you are trapped in this house with them as they try to survive the onslaught of bird attacks.”
The play also examined themes of climate change, power dynamics and gender roles within a domestic setting. As the story unfolds, one of the characters finds out they are unexpectedly pregnant, leaving them to grapple with the ethics of bringing a child into the world’s hopeless climate. Rather than focusing on the birds outside the house like in du Maurier’s story, attention is shifted toward the dynamic between the characters inside the house. As a result, the horror element was heightened due to the characters’ unpredictable behavior.
“(The bird attack) is the initial layer of apocalypse that they (the characters) face, but working to build tensions between each of the characters is the second layer,” said Sydney Hartmann, the assistant director for the production and a junior at GVSU.
Additionally, “The Birds,” like other contemporary apocalypse stories, such as “The Road” and “The Last of Us,” examined human morality in the face of disaster. With allusions to murder and depictions of predatory behavior, the production draws a line between what people resort to for survival and what remains beyond the threshold of morality. Hartmann said the production asked audiences whether their morality would shift in an apocalyptic scenario or if it would hold firm.
“Their structure of society is gone, so the way they act and fight for things (is) immensely different,” Hartmann said. “I want them (audiences) to think about how far they would actually go to get the things they want when all bets are off.”
The next production from GVSU’s theatre program, “The Rivals,” will run from April 5 to 14 in the Linn Maxwell Keller Black Box Theatre. Tickets for the production are already available for purchase.
