A surreal, playful, and moving multi-media dance about weird kids — beautifully cohesive and captivating.
Birdboy at Sadler’s Wells East is Irish Choreographer Emma Martin’s London debut – a tribute to all the weird kids left on the sidelines, for both young children and the inner child of all.
Birdboy offers a stunning visual experience with a set consisting of a beat-up old Volkswagen, and a helium-filled plastic bag with a jellyfish-like tentacle tail hovering in its headlights. The performer, Kévin Coquelard, starts perched atop this car, dressed as a bird, his silhouette cast large on the back wall. The piece beautifully weaves its storytelling between choreography, shadow art, projection, objects and absolutely gorgeous lighting design – particularly striking as it emanates from the inside of the car, imbuing it with its own distinct, living character. Through shadow puppetry, we understand the central character’s loneliness and endearing, childlike view of the world.
From the outset, the piece strikes a playful, chaotic, and surreal tone, layering what we understand in a concrete sense with a wonderfully abstracted world of otherworldly creatures and a young person’s magical logic. This layered ambiguity was a strength of the piece for me: the character brushes his teeth, seemingly sleeping in his car, as his car radio comes to life. The radio offers a voice to the character who we understand, through a recording of his own voice as a child, does not like to speak in front of others. It’s a delight to find out more about this child self across the piece – his challenges and loves. Coquelard lip-syncs to these recordings alongside rapid-fire music and media clips – an eclecticism reminiscent of how content consumption feels online. Both expansive and limiting as the character’s way of understanding and expressing his isolation and escapism. This is reflected in the choreography, as he is compelled into frenzied rhythms to keep up with this varied cultural soundtrack of feeling and humour.
Coquelard’s performance is captivating from the moment he steps onto the stage. His portrayal of the character is deeply touching, idiosyncratic and whole-hearted, with physicality that is entirely specific to the world of Birdboy. This movement serves to transcribe his internal state alongside a use of slapstick and physical comedy that, at times, reminded me of Rik Myall’s performance in Drop Dead Fred. The deliberate cartoonish quality never detracted from the piece’s human core, exploring instead that the character does not know how to “fit in” comfortably between these wild mosaics of self. Highly relatable.
The piece exudes a retro aesthetic, in the choice of car and the style of the sound design. This nostalgic atmosphere reflects the character’s fears and left-over stories, echoing his early experiences of alienation, immersed in an imaginative world tinged with discomfort. Coquelard played so well off the elements on stage, helping to bring the car and increasingly appearing “jellyfish” to life alongside incredible design. He and Martin create an ethereal, characterful world in collaboration with the brilliant stagecraft, lighting, music and sound.
As the performance unfolds, more ominous plastic bag “jellyfish” clutter the stage, both inescapable and suffocating, adding to the surreal and dreamlike quality of the piece. Birdboy is someone who gets rid of other people’s unkind laughter and sweeps away these “jellyfish”, a hero figure who both looks after the character and who the character could become. What once used to overwhelm is seemingly let go of by the end – finding the freedom of flying.
I found Birdboy to be incredibly touching – a gift: honest, delightful and heartbreaking. It’s a cohesive, strange world that’s stayed with me, and I could feel the strength of collaboration throughout. It is weird, and what does weird really mean? I would recommend this show to everybody – it’s a feat – and there’s a lot more to reflect on in this work. A beautiful journey, a beautiful character, a wonder-filled world – a gorgeous show.
Author: Ariella Stoian