{"id":24720,"date":"2023-11-29T09:00:17","date_gmt":"2023-11-29T17:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=24720"},"modified":"2023-11-24T11:04:26","modified_gmt":"2023-11-24T19:04:26","slug":"stupid-fucking-bird-more-than-a-stupid-fucking-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2023\/11\/29\/stupid-fucking-bird-more-than-a-stupid-fucking-play\/","title":{"rendered":"Stupid Fucking Bird<\/em> more than a stupid fucking play"},"content":{"rendered":"

With a provocative title and a deep connection to classical theatre, Stupid Fucking Bird<\/i> is taking over Theatre Inconnu. The play is a modern retelling of Chekhov\u2019s The Seagull<\/i> that remains quite faithful to the original plot. Director Morgan Gadd\u2019s appreciation for the source material deeply inspired the direction taken for the play.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Seagull<\/i> was a story about a group of people, mostly family, who are estate owners in Russia at the turn of the century,\u201d says Gadd. \u201cAnd Chekhov himself… a person who was really in tune with the people and the times of his day, he was aware that society was breaking up, coming apart at the seams, and that there were big social changes coming. And, of course, this is the turn of the 19th century into the 20th century. And the Russian Revolution is just a few years away. I think he sensed it was coming. Because the characters in that play, who are all landowners, they feel that something\u2019s coming, but they don\u2019t know what it is. But they\u2019re very unsettled. They\u2019re trying to figure it out. They\u2019re trying to find out ways to kind of cope with the changes that are hitting them and tearing their lives apart, basically.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Stupid Fucking Bird runs until December 16 at Theatre Inconnu (photo by Morgan Gadd\/Theatre Inconnu).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For the story\u2019s main character, Con (from the original character Konstantin), the main goal is to create art that can soothe the imminent transitions in life.<\/p>\n

\u201cCon is a struggling young playwright,\u201d says Gadd. \u201cHe\u2019s trying to find new forms of art that will address the issues that he\u2019s got. Things like identity issues, who are we as people, social issues like how do we cope when the government doesn\u2019t work? How do we cope when we\u2019re surrounded by situations outside of our control, like climate change, things that reach into and affect our lives?\u201d<\/p>\n

However, those worried about the story being more of a lecture have nothing to fear. While the political motivations for the character\u2019s art are present, Con is also motivated by love. He writes this new play for Nina, the woman he\u2019s pining for\u2014but, as always in drama, it\u2019s more complicated than that.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn both plays, there is a pentangle of unrequited love among the characters\u2014each character, almost every character, is in love with someone who doesn\u2019t love them back,\u201d says Gadd.<\/p>\n

The original play, however, brings some complications to the stage\u2014namely the large cast. Despite Gadd\u2019s love for The Seagull<\/i>, he says it wouldn\u2019t be accessible for the theatre.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were not in a position to perform the original. And the main reason, I guess, you could say is that the cast is huge, like 14, or something like that. Back in the day, they had large productions, with lots of people in their shows; now this play only has seven.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the reduced cast, Stupid Fucking Bird<\/i> is still ambitious for its scope.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy modern community theatre standards, [seven] is a pretty large cast,\u201d says Gadd.<\/p>\n

Gadd speaks warmly about the atmosphere of community theatre\u2014and this production brings in the best of the actors they\u2019ve already worked with.<\/p>\n

\u201cVery often, and especially in community theatre, you end up with plays with many new people that don\u2019t really know each other, haven\u2019t worked before… It\u2019s often an entry point for new young and aspiring actors. So what we have in this play, is that all of the characters in Stupid Fucking Bird<\/i>, I would call them… veterans of Theatre Inconnu.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Gadd, the magic of community theatre is about just that: community.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about ensemble,\u201d he says, \u201cit\u2019s not about ego.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stupid Fucking Bird
\n<\/i>Various days and times,\u00a0Wednesday, November 29\u00a0until Saturday, December 16
\nVarious prices\u00a0(student tickets $10),\u00a0Theatre Inconnu
\ntheatreinconnu.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With a provocative title and a deep connection to classical theatre, Stupid Fucking Bird is taking over Theatre Inconnu. The play is a modern retelling of Chekhov\u2019s The Seagull that remains quite faithful to the original plot. Director Morgan Gadd\u2019s appreciation for the source material deeply inspired the direction taken for the play. \u201cThe Seagull […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24721,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,301],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-november-29-2023"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24720"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24722,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24720\/revisions\/24722"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}