Birdland, by Simon Stephens, Royal Court Theatre London.

There is something deeply disturbing about Simon Stephen’s new play Birdland. Depicting the final weeks of a rock star’s world tour, we watch in horror as the star’s psyche, his musical career, his relationships, and the stage itself collapse around him. It is riveting stuff, the kind of expressionistic theatre popular in Europe, but rarely performed on the London stage.

Simon Stephen’s has been questioning the boundaries of theatre ever since his London bombings-set Pornography first shocked audiences in 2007. In the last half decade he has produced a string of innovative works, from the horrifying Wastwater, to the baffling Trial of Ubu, which have ruffled the feathers of London’s theatrical elite.

He is on mischievous form again in this rock and roll nightmare.

Fame is a torrid subject to write about. It’s a Faustian pact with the devil? Cliché. It strains relations and leads to unbearable self-assurance? Yawn.  Stephens doesn’t manage to fully break free from these tired conventions, but his modern day parable does successfully manage to explore themes that are universal, rather than simply tied to the rich and famous.

Paul is a man on the run. He is fleeing his hometown; he is fleeing his father; he is fleeing trauma; he is fleeing old friends, two-point-four children, and a mundane existence. Holed up in opulent hotel suites and surrounded by sycophantic admirers, Paul is trapped, fearful of a return to England, and incapable of fostering relations.

Carrie Cracknell’s direction and Ian McNeil’s set design emphasize this dissonance. Choreographed movement inhibits interaction, and a creeping tide of water that initially divides Paul from the world around him, rises and starts to overpower him as the play progresses. It is a fitting symbol for the chaos that rips through his life. The fortune that quickly becomes his misfortune.

Simon Stephen’s recent commercial success provides an interesting subtext to the play’s mediation on fame. His adaptations of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime and A Doll’s House have both had successful West End transfers, have played, or are about to play, on Broadway, and have propelled him to levels of recognition, fame, and presumably wealth that he has not previously experienced. To what extent is Stephen’s channeling his own insecurities into this parable? It’s an intriguing question that helps to propel the play’s drama and tension.

 

Following the wild success of Sherlock, the play’s star Andrew Scott is also battling adulation and sycophancy. The irony of hordes of baying girls queuing outside the theatre’s stage door post-show seemed to be lost on those who participated. 

Birdland is not a perfect piece of theatre. It doesn’t quite hold together, its message often obscured, the dialogue and set too jarring. This is arguably the creative team’s intention because it adds to the audience’s palpable discomfort. The play’s final moments, its descent into tragedy, also felt unnecessary. The point was made subtly throughout, and didn’t need to be rammed home.

Like always, however, it is refreshing to have one of Stephen’s plays in London. His capacity to shock, unnerve, and question are admirable virtues in contrast to the staid drivel that frequently populates London’s theatres.