You should put aside what you think you know about the narrative of The Birds if you’ve seen Hitchcock’s classic movie. Only the essential concept remains in Conor McPherson’s (The Seafarer, Shining City) 2009 adaptation of the original Daphne Du Maurier novelette: If the birds turned on us, it would be terrifying.
In McPherson’s tale, the birds have been on their murderous rampage long enough that the story focuses on what happens in cramped quarters with traumatized survivors of an unthinkable disaster. Nat (Brent Vimtrup) and Diane (Sherman Fracher) have sought refuge from the attacking birds in a boarded-up lake house with dwindling food and supplies. Strangers before the avian calamity, they have found an uneasy rhythm to their days, opening the windows when the birds go dormant in sync with low tide and gearing up for their attack six hours later, when the tide comes back in. Nat appears more bonkers than Diane and reveals a history of instability.
Soon young Julia (Sara Clark) joins the pair and destabilizes their bird-hostage harmony. Is Diane really jealous of Julia? Is Julia a murderer? By the time raging-mad, oddball survivalist neighbor Tierney (Nicholas Rose) barges in on the fearful Diane in his homemade anti-bird helmet and football shoulder pads, it’s clear that the birds are not the only predators at large. Until the end, you just aren’t certain who is the least trustworthy. Doug Borntrager’s ominous drones-plus-birds sound design adds tension throughout, as we never actually see the birds, only hear them.
Brian Isaac Phillips has ably directed this one-act (it’s about 100 minutes long) with strong performances by this cast featuring some of CSC’s best actors. Sara Clark’s Julia is moving and complex, and Sherman Fracher’s Diane a worthy adversary. Nick Rose’s Tierney is a rollicking study in survivalist madness. Brent Vimtrup’s Nat is a tad histrionic, in large part fed by the demands of a script that starts stronger than it ends. McPherson’s interesting adaptation inverts the tension structure: The stakes are highest at the beginning, demanding the actors (and audience) de-accelerate over the course of the play. While it ends with a more subtle conclusion of what horror really looks like, it doesn’t quite deliver the terror that is promised up front.
THE BIRDS, presented by Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, continues through Nov. 8.
This article appears in Oct 15-21, 2014.