Newsday, June 7 "In Bruce J. Robinson's new play "Byrd's Boy," opening Monday at Primary Stages (354 W. 45th, Manhattan) David McCallum plays a character based on the son of aviator Admiral Byrd, who was discovered living in a warehouse with Alzheimer's disease. "The mortar of the play is that fathers and sons have a tough time dealing with each other and discovering their mutual identities," says McCallum, who himself is the son of Sir Thomas Beecham, the prominent 20th century conductor, composer, and concertmaster. "But it's important to stress that this a funny play. He doesn't have a severe case of Alzheimer's -- otherwise, there'd be no play."
Vol. 7, No. 1736W - The American Reporter - December 9, 2001
'BYRD'S BOY' IN SEARCH OF HIS EXPLORER FATHER
by Lucy Komisar
American Reporter Correspondent
New York, N.Y.
"Byrd's Boy." Written by Bruce J. Robinson. Directed by Arthur Masella. Starring David McCallum, Myra Lucretia Taylor. Set by Narelle Sissons. Costumes by Judith Dolan. Lighting by Peter West. Original music and sound by Donald DiNicola. New York: Primary Stages, 354 W. 45 St. Wed-Sat & Mon 8, Sat 2:30, Sun 3. Running time: 2 hrs. Through July 1, 2001. $40. Tkts 212-333-4052. Web page at http://www.primarystages.com.
NEW YORK -- Bruce Robinson's quirky tale is above all a venue for the superb acting talents of David McCallum and Myra Lucretia Taylor. It is also a commentary on the need for parental love and for human warmth. That could be obvious and trite, but director Arthur Masella wrings a lot of authenticity and charm out of the story before it begins to wear thin.
The play was inspired by the death in 1988 of Richard E. Bryd Jr., 68, found expired from malnutrition and dehydration in a Baltimore warehouse. He had boarded a train in Boston to attend ceremonies in Washington honoring his father, the Antarctic explorer and then disappeared. The warehouse janitor had evicted him a few days before. Though his family hadn't known, Byrd suffered from Alzheimer's.
Robinson imagines what might have happened if Byrd (McCallum) had been found and kept alive in that warehouse by a security guard, Birdie (Taylor), a feisty, stocky woman with a 7-year-old child, a fear of striking out to make a better life for herself, but an ability to empathize and comfort others.
McCallum, florid, with straggly hair and beard, in bedraggled garb appropriate to polar expeditions, seems like a Shakespearean actor or a figure in a Beckett play. He exudes erratic energy and passion. He's a charmer though obviously disconnected from reality. Yet his perception of human needs and frailties is on the mark. The two succor each other.
Taylor, her hair in cornrow twists, her personality acerbic, is sad and comic at once. "You are a teacup short of a place set," she tells him. "You're so grubby," then adds, "It's nice; it's a look." She's going to give up her slave name and take an Arab name: Peter O'Toole. (Who didn't see "Lawrence of Arabia"?)
Bryd contrasts his own loneliness, his feeling of having been deserted by his father who spent his money raising money and going on expeditions, with the ironically more social behavior of the penguins his father went to study. He flaps like a penguin as he explains their communal instincts, how they huddle together in the cold and, as those on the outside get too chilled, pull them inside to the center of warmth.
Birdie feeds him sandwiches and TLC during months in the warehouse. He feeds her self-knowledge, making her understand her resentment of the father who abandoned her. (Her husband also deserted, and she has an understandably cynical attitude toward men.) He thinks his own father is still alive, though he actually died 30 years before.
Sometimes the text is a bit overwritten; it's also overlong and overdone. But it's a pleasure to watch these actors establish the mood inside designer Narelle Sisson's old warehouse, its whiteness mimicking the ice-caped poles, with white tiles and old wood crates piled mountainously high, an upended stall shower serving as Byrd's sleeping hideaway.
Lucy Komisar welcomes your comments. Please send them to mailto:lkomisar@echonyc.com.
from Playbill.com June 11
Byrd's Boy Born at Off-Broadway's Primary Stages, June 11-July 1
11-JUN-2001
Closing the season at Off-Broadway's Primary Stages is Bruce J. Robinson's Byrd's
Boy, directed by Arthur Masella. Performances began May 30 for an opening June
11 and a run through July 1, according to a spokesperson.
David McCallum, a newly ubiquitous presence on Manhattan stages, plays Byrd, a brilliant but deranged homeless man who may be the son of Admiral Byrd. Myra Lucretia Taylor co-stars in the two-hander as a night watch-woman who has her own headaches to deal with. The two meet in a Baltimore warehouse and reveal unresolved issues with their fathers.
Asked about the impetus for the play, author Robinson wrote to Playbill On-Line and noted, "A major objective was to write a piece that celebrates what makes us all humans. As I always do, I wanted to write with flair, emotion, and humor... If people come out of Primary Stages thinking that they've been on a good ride and feeling a little better about being human, I'll be delighted."
Best known for his years as "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.," actor McCallum has taken to New York theatre in a big way recently, starting with a supporting role in Nasty Little Secrets at Primary Stages two seasons back. Since then, he's appeared in Communicating Doors, a Broadway revival of Amadeus, a Central Park Julius Caesar (as Caesar), and MTC's musical Time and Again.
Actress Taylor appeared in Macbeth and Electra on Broadway and The American Clock at OB's Signature Theatre.
Helping Byrd's Boy take wing are designers Peter West (lighting), Donald DiNicola (music & sound) and Candide Tony-winner Judith Dolan (costumes).
For tickets and information on Byrd's Boy at Primary Stages, 354 West 45 St., call (212) 333-4052.
— By David Lefkowitz
THEATER REVIEW
By BRUCE WEBER
In October 1988 Richard E. Byrd Jr., the son of Admiral Byrd, the polar explorer, was discovered dead in a Baltimore warehouse. After boarding a Washington-bound train from Boston, where he lived, to attend a ceremony honoring his father, he had gotten off at the wrong stop and been missing for nearly three weeks. Age 68 and evidently suffering from Alzheimer's disease, he had wandered around the city and eventually died of malnutrition. A janitor in the same warehouse where he died had chased him out several days earlier.
From this sad outline, somehow more poignant for its brevity (these details and not much more were reported in The New York Times), Bruce J. Robinson was inspired to write a long-winded and maudlin play called "Byrd's Boy," which opened last night at Primary Stages. The question he seems to have asked himself is what might have happened if that janitor hadn't kicked Byrd out but fed and befriended him.
The result is an odd-couple bonding story. Byrd, who is played by David McCallum, is tattered, unclean and childlike, deranged in a good-natured way. He's kind and friendly, not without wit, and every now and then he seems to think he's a penguin. Most of all he is consumed by thoughts of his long-dead father, whose love and approbation he still needs and whom he apparently thinks is merely off exploring. Periodically the son tries to draw his father back by drumming on a box that he always keeps with him on a shoulder strap. As the play opens, Byrd has made a home for himself in a crate on the warehouse floor.
In Mr. Robinson's imagination, the janitor becomes a security guard, a black woman in her 30's (Myra Lucretia Taylor). Caring for both her son and her mother because both her father and husband ran out on their families, she's got a chip on her shoulder about men. (Her boss is a creep, too.) But she's a likable soul, with a reasonably clever self-deprecating wit and a habit of entertaining herself entertainingly; she is prone to addressing the warehouse rats as if they were an audience.
Her name, coincidentally enough, is Birdie, giving the two characters at least a nominal connection. Through a couple of hours of sometimes cutesy, sometimes ponderous dialogue, the two are allegedly bonded by their similar kinds of loneliness. But it is dubious claim.
Through Byrd's gentleness and neediness, Birdie learns that all men are not cold and dismissive; through Birdie's kindness, Byrd can finish his life without the sense of abandonment he has always felt. Simplistic and overwrought, the relationship comes to a close in a scene that is egregiously sentimental.
The director, Arthur Masella, keeps the actors in motion, which helps the show's pace. Byrd in particular is prone to climb ladders, hide on platforms, disappear into his crate or ascend a stack of boxes as though it were an iceberg. (The set by Narelle Sissons, mostly the pale color that suggests ice and snow, is thoughtful.)
But there are careless elements as well. Early on, Birdie unholsters her pistol and sets it down on a shelf, which is precisely where it stays for the remainder of the play, which takes place over a period of some weeks. Perhaps this violation of Chekhov's famous principle (a gun on the wall in the beginning must go off by the end) is intentionally playful, but it seems merely a lack of vigilance.
Mr. McCallum as the prancing, awkward and delicate Byrd, and Ms. Taylor, who gives Birdie an amusingly crabby self-possession, both turn in professional performances in sizable roles. They're both fully present onstage, and their chemistry is palpable. But even together they're nowhere near buoyant enough to lift the script.
BYRD'S BOY
By Bruce J. Robinson; directed by Arthur Masella; sets by Narelle Sissons; costumes
by Judith Dolan; lighting by Peter West; original music and sound by Donald
DiNicola; production stage manager, Douglas Shearer; production manager, Joshua
Helman; props, Michelle Malavet; associate artistic director, Tyler Marchant;
general manager, Paul Perkins. Presented by Primary Stages, Casey Childs, artistic
director, in association with Jeff Ash. At 354 West 45th Street, Clinton.
WITH: David McCallum (Byrd) and Myra Lucretia Taylor (Birdie).
New York Post 6/12/01
‘BOY' FOR THE BIRDS
By DONALD LYONS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
June 12, 2001 -- BALTIMORE: a warehouse, full of piled-up trunks. A crazy old
man, alone in it, seems to think it is Antarctica. He climbs the piles, plants
flags, recites statistics, chatters to imaginary penguins.
A woman enters, takes a swig from her flask, sweeps her flashlight about, and
discovers the coot.
That's the beginning of "Byrd's Boy," by Bruce J. Robinson, a show rooted in the 1988 death of the 68-year-old son of Admiral Byrd, the famous polar explorer.
Byrd's son, who had Alzheimer's, took a train from Boston to Washington, where his father was to be honored, but wound up getting off the train and somehow dying in a Baltimore warehouse.
With this slender nugget of fact, Robinson has concocted a soapy psychodrama in which two lonely souls learn some lessons.
It's totally phony, lightened only by the brassy yet tender playing of Myra Lucretia Taylor as the guard. At first quick with her sassy wit, she thaws to the old galoot, played unconvincingly by David McCallum.
McCallum has lots of twitches and eccentricities but no cohering spin.
The woman, whose name is (can you guess?) Birdie, soon is bringing the man sandwiches. She celebrates Halloween and Christmas with him in the warehouse as they bond in their desolation.
This should be a one-act, but there is an unnecessary second act in which Birdie impersonates Admiral Byrd and assures the coot that "I love you, son." And he tells Birdie to go to L.A. with her own son.
So out of the awful, savage true story, Robinson has substituted a drawn-out melodrama in which two fatherless souls find reconciliation with their dead fathers.
Curtainup.com
Some of us read the newspaper to find out what's going on in the world. Others, like Bruce J. Robinson, troll it for inspiration. In 1988, an article appeared in the New York Times noting that the son of polar explorer Admiral Byrd, age 68, had been found dead in a warehouse in Baltimore. Some days earlier, the custodian (race unspecified) said he had ordered Byrd (presumably seeming very much like a homeless person) out of the warehouse. The coroner's report indicated he died of malnutrition and dehydration, brought on by Alzheimer's Disease. The time span of the story was less than three weeks, from September 13, 1988, when he left Boston on a train enroute to Washington, until October 3, 1988, when he his body -- dead for several days -- was found.
From this slim source, Robinson has fashioned Byrd's Boy. In his telling, Byrd (David McCallum) was found by a black female night guard, Birdie (Myra Lucretia Taylor), in a warehouse where he had essentially set up housekeeping. Babbling incoherently much of the time, and only intermittently possessing even a marginal awareness of who he was, Byrd nonetheless developed a friendship with Birdie, who harbored and fed him. This continued for at least several months (the story includes celebrations of both Halloween and Christmas), at which point he died. A parallel story -- related via a series of telephone calls -- involves Birdie's relationship with her own seven-year-old son.
In a style I would label "aspiring-to-lyricism," Robinson seeks to show the emerging bond between the two, and to have Byrd's cloudy search for his father inform Birdie's understanding of her own son's needs. (Much is also made of the similarity of their names, prompting several of the show's many flat-footed jokes.) In some of Byrd's more lucid moments, enough information about who his father was come out for Birdie to make the connection. (At one point, Robinson has Byrd recite what amounts to an encyclopedia entry on the great explorer.) Much of the play finds Byrd spouting gibberish about penguins or carrying on conversations with his father. Late in the play, he will conclude Birdie is his father, and she will play along.
That there is unavoidable denseness in much of what Byrd says is defensible, although it doesn't make for particularly useful or engaging theater. But why must Birdie tell lengthy stories that are every bit as incomprehensible and inaccessible? The net effect is a leaden two hours. Robinson sins more still when he tries to evoke Birdie's African American sensibilities; even in Myra Taylor's capable hands, they ring false. Perhaps the biggest crime is that the substantial talents of both actors are wasted on this material. Ditto for the production's design elements (especially Narelle Sissons's set), which can't be faulted in the least, and Arthur Masella's direction (with which I have little quarrel other than its inability to make sense of this mush).
Poetry doesn't have to rhyme, but it does have to flow.
Broadway.com
Based on a true story, Bruce J. Robinson’s play traces the unlikely friendship
that develops between a warehouse security guard and a homeless man who happens
to be the son of the famous explorer Admiral Robert E. Byrd. While it takes
a while to get going, Primary Stages’ Byrd’s Boy eventually takes
the audience on an affecting journey.
Birdie (Myra Lucretia Taylor) is the night watchwoman who stumbles upon Byrd
(David McCallum) in the Baltimore warehouse she patrols. Sassy and outspoken,
she’s a black, single mother who juggles her responsibilities at work and
home, reading bedtime stories of the Sea King to her young son over the phone.
A bit discouraged, she drinks on the job. But she also loves to dance—especially
to Marvin Gaye. At first, Birdie tells the grubby squatter to get out. But as
the two banter, they come to enjoy each other’s company and gradually become
soul mates.
While they wouldn’t seem to have much in common, both Byrd and Birdie long for the fathers who abandoned them. Birdie’s left her family when she was a child, and Byrd’s left his family frequently to lead expeditions to Antarctica and fly over the North Pole. Byrd has spent much of his life burnishing the legacy of his famous father, but late in life he’s become an embarrassment to his family. While he still has some smarts, he also has a few screws loose. Byrd talks about penguins a lot, and he even moves around like one sometimes (a behavior that is less realistic than the rest of the play). He explains to Birdie that penguins would freeze to death if they didn’t bunch together and keep each other warm. Likewise, Byrd and Birdie comfort each other—particularly over the loss of their fathers. At the end of the first act, they both speak of their longing for them. While their speeches are touching, Robinson strains for pathos here.
In the second act, however, the playwright and the actors make the odd pair’s story genuinely moving. By the end, we realize that the Sea King sounds like seeking, and that Birdie has found the strength to follow her dreams and explore new territory. Helped by her friendship with Byrd, the journey she’s about to take is as inspiring in its way as the trailblazing travels of Admiral Byrd.
Taylor is wonderful as Birdie, bringing out the character’s sense of humor as well as her frustrations. Whether she’s greeting the warehouse’s “rats, vermins, and mice” or teaching Byrd how to dance, Taylor imbues Birdie with an irrepressible spirit. McCallum (still best known for The Man From Uncle, though he has an impressive list of theater credits) is convincingly batty as Byrd. He and Taylor work together beautifully, appearing to be just as in sync as their characters.
Director Arthur Masella staged the action effectively, while Donald DiNicola composed the stirring music and created the sound design that periodically conjures up Antarctica. Despite the references to frosty climes and fatherless childhoods, Byrd’s Boy is an extremely warm, heartfelt play. And in the capable hands of Taylor and McCallum, it’s also a very well-played two-hander.
Newsday, June 12, 2001
A Polar Explorer's Son Meets Warm Soul
'Byrd's Boy' places the admiral's offspring in a warehouse encounter
review by Gordon Cox
In 1988, a corpse was found in a Baltimore warehouse. The event garnered some media attention because the dead man turned out to be the son of arctic explorer Adm. Richard E. Byrd. Byrd Jr., suffering from Alzheimer's, had wandered into the warehouse and was eventually discovered by the warehouse's custodian.
With 'Byrd's Boy,' a world premiere production that opened last night at Primary Stages, playwright Bruce J. Robinson has taken this true story and imagined an encounter between Byrd Jr. and the warehouse security guard, here an African-American woman named, somewhat too neatly, Birdie. In this fictionalized version of events, friendship blossoms between Birdie and Byrd, who hides out in the warehouse for several months.
If 'Byrd's Boy' were music, it could comfortably fit right in on an easy-listening radio station. It's pleasant enough, even if it is maudlin and predictable. With its wholesome, family-forward message, it couldn't possibly offend anyone.
And like most easy-listening Muzak, it's also entirely toothless. While Alzheimer's cruel memory loss may have ravaged the real Byrd, the character Byrd is prey only to the most benign forms of madness. This Byrd is delusional, but never dangerously so (his fugue states accompanied always by Donald DiNicola's intrusive fog-horns-and-wind-chimes sound cues.) When things get too emotionally heated, he imitates a penguin. Robinson's very sentimental idea of crazy reduces Byrd to a smart, amiably dependent little elf.
Playing the lovable madman, David McCallum gamely clambers over Narelle Sissons' open warehouse set, which is dusted with white paint to suggest the polar climes the intrepid admiral explored. Flapping his hands as if they were penguin flippers or beating out Morse code on an old cardboard box, McCallum gives a superficially accomplished performance in a role tailor-made for that kind of actorly ostentation. It's all carefully mannered, but there's not much soul in it.
The whole theatrical expedition is saved by the animated energy of Myra Lucretia Taylor, who's irresistible even when the play is not. A big, physically confident woman and a generous actor, Taylor lovingly expresses her character's sweeping goodwill and makes Birdie's overwritten spunk genuinely appealing. (It's still too bad that Taylor finds herself on the wrong end of the play's more contrived devices of exposition and character development -- she spends a lot of time talking to the warehouse's alarm bell as if it were her mother.)
But to the credit of director Arthur Masella, none of the play's shortcomings are as frustrating as they could be. 'Byrd's Boy' may be as misty-eyed as a light favorite on the radio, but buoyed by Taylor's performance, it's harmless and moderately entertaining enough to go down real easy.
TalkinBroadway.com
Byrd's Boy
Theatre Review by Matthew Murray
The title character of Byrd's Boy, Bruce J. Robinson's new play which opened
last night at Primary Stages, is the son of noted polar explorer Richard E.
Byrd. The play is supposedly based on events surrounding Byrd's 1988 disappearance,
but what it is really about - or what Robinson was trying to say - is anyone's
guess.
The play concerns the last few weeks of Byrd's life, prior to the discovery of his body in a Baltimore warehouse. Robinson starts the play in the warehouse, where Byrd (David McCallum) has already made his home. He meets the security guard, Birdie (Myra Lucretia Taylor) who, naturally, wants him to leave. He is able to convince her to let him spend the night.
One night turns into several weeks, and during this time, Byrd and Birdie get to know and understand each other. They celebrate Christmas together and begin to reveal personal details about their lives. We and Birdie slowly learn that Byrd's confusion and dementia is due, in part, to his troubled relationship with his father. Whether or not Birdie also had problems with her father, and the final status of Byrd and Birdie's relationship, are surprises that won't be revealed here.
Robinson seems to intend the play to be driven more by its characters than its plot. Unfortunately neither Byrd nor Birdie is strong enough to make the trip. Both are drawn in very cliched, broad strokes making it difficult to feel for either of them. Byrd, for example, spends most of his onstage time believing he's on a polar expedition, planting flags, befriending penguins, and beating on a box. Birdie's idea of a suitable bedtime story for her son is an over-lengthy dreamlike tale of the beach that has less than covert resonance within the rest of the play itself.
Robinson's reliance on familiar dramatic devices prevents him from establishing a true connection with his characters, and this renders the rest of the play both confusing and predictable. Byrd utters the lines "As thought goes, does instinct come back?" and "Forgetting is comedy; remembering, that's the tragedy" at different points in the script. Though suffering from severe memory problems, he is able to remember surprisingly detailed accounts of his life when it becomes convenient for the plot. When his dementia reaches its peak, he threatens to commit suicide by standing a pile of boxes only a few feet off the floor. And, at one point or another, both Byrd and Birdie seem to be imitating penguins.
Because of all this, it is difficult to take most of the drama in the play seriously. Arthur Casella's direction is earnest, but ultimately ineffective, and does little to make deciphering the play any easier. The actors themselves fare little better; McCallum and Taylor do what they can with their roles, but simply cannot create believable characters with the text they are given. Peter West's inventive lights and Narelle Sisson's strikingly realistic sets are the only true highlights of the evening.
Robinson may have intended Byrd's Boy to be an affectionate look at the relationships children have with their elders in society. In the end, whatever he was trying to accomplish with the tale of Richard E. Byrd, Jr. doesn't come across. The flurry of overdone symbolism, trite dialogue, and forced emotions leave an impression that, perhaps appropriately, is little more than cold.
Everything about the play depends on believing the different facets of Byrd's character. It wouldn't work if he were just *crazy* -- the emotional connection to the character depends on his continual crossing and recrossing the line between reality and delusion, and DMc did a remarkable job of that, IMO. There was a finesse to those moments which impressed me; he didn't *play to the house,* he didn't overdo a part that would have been way to easy to go over the top with. As a matter of pure professionalism, he appeared to be in a world limited to the stage, no, to his own personal space, unlike his co-star who (while she deserves credit) could well have been in the cast of a good regional or community theatre. There are lines in which Byrd makes an insightful or revelatory comment, where DMc gives a smooth transition out of and back into his world of confusion -- smooth and believable. You can see him thinking, catching hold of a moment of lucidity, then having it slip away. When he's thinking, he's able to project the sense that he's hearing both the actress talking to him and his own thoughts, and in the audience, I wondered which would have the stronger pull *at that moment.*
There are comic moments in which Byrd responds very appropriately to the real world but very subtly invoking the image of the child he never grew up from. The lines being a very *literal* response to a more complex question, set up that childlike reference, but he gave it just enough ingenuous delivery as well as body language to make it *happen.* For me, anyway. In fact, until I've set out to describe it to you, I hadn't realized that's what I saw. :)
I'm probably not making much sense, but the point is this part was the kind that is always at risk of being overdone; it takes talent to do it to its maximal potential, and DMc did.
Oh, on some of the openly funny (and childlike) lines, DMc had a toss of the head that for all the world reminded me of the character Hugo on The Vicar of Dibley (if you've ever seen that series on PBS).
One of the things which I truly saw and appreciated in this performance was DMc's remarkable talent for stage business that never intrudes but turns a *well-acted* piece into a truly excellent performance. Little movements with his hands that seem spontaneous and natural. We saw a bit of that on UNCLE, but the camera doesn't show us the tableau or allow much movement. His ability to move on stage without telegraphing the planned nature of the blocking was remarkable; he pretty much *owns* the space without appearing to do so. He's a pro, and a good one.
The most *iffy* thing he had to do was imitate penguin behavior. I'm not quite sure that the playwright got his point across with that repeated bit of business, but it's in the script, and DMc managed to do his flipper flapping in a way that made sense to me, were consistent with the sorts of movement disorders that parallel neurodegenerative diseases, and as one of the *calming* repetitive behaviors that develop in children and adults.
This part was demanding and complex, and IMO, his performance deserves *objective* praise, not merely praise from people who would love it if he just sat quietly on stage. But I bet if he had a part like that, he'd add some nifty stage business to it. :)
So, ask any questions you might have, and I'll try to answer. Yes, the theatre is tiny (90 people) and old and decrepit; bare stage (no curtain or scrim); DMc was literally climbing the pipes and walls. About that, the Channel_M reports were spot on -- I was encouraged to see that 68 doesn't have to impede your physical performance. Several times DMc had to leave the stage while the lights were down for a scene change -- like at the end after he has died) -- and he truly was able to move like a cat.
- Nancy L. Hayes
If any of you go to "Byrd's Boy" you will not be disappointed. He's fabulous—-sweet, appealing and child-like. He's crazy and brilliant at the same time. And funny. Lots of dialogue and he's on stage pretty much throughout. The rapport between Myra and him rocks—opposites attract. They possess resonate, beautiful voices and it's a pleasure to listen to them both.
The play is about love denied by errant, careless fathers. It's sentimental and strange, but hopeful, even healing. It reminded me of my own Father and I wondered if David related to it as a father or a son or at all.
And screw the NY Post—it's a lousy newspaper anyway. I do lack perspective, but David is just fine in his role—-brings to it intelligence, power and poignancy. The audience was tearful at the end. Me too—-but maybe not for the same reasons.
This is not a play about the ravages of Alzheimers--DMc's character is not
supposed to be strictly realistic. He has lost his identity but he never really
had an identity. He's always been Byrd's boy-- that's the point--and it's not
enough. He's lived in his father's shadow and his father never really noticed
him. It's not an exploration of growing old or homelessness in the literal sense.
He doesn't even seem old really--more like a lost boy.
- Beth
I do not know what play the various critics who reviewed Byrd's Boy saw, but
it was obviously not the same one I was privileged to view in its final performance
on Sunday afternoon, July 1.
The play I saw was everything I had hoped for. It was funny, sad, poignant, thought provoking, and entertaining, often changing emotional direction on a dime, keeping the playgoer riveted to the action on stage.
Several interesting ideas came across. One was that wisdom can come from unexpected sources, even from a deranged homeless man who still has courage to follow his heart, "a tender, but strong muscle." (I loved that line.)
Another point is that love is what fuels all of us..rich, poor, young, old, man, woman, black, white. That without love we all lead bleak, cold lives, always seeking something the is missing from deep inside of us.....that without love we are all homeless and alone. Only through love - unconditional love and acceptance - can we find our peace and fulfillment. Both Byrd and Birdie, though an unlikely, yet touching friendship, find both of these.
Although the play ends on a sad note, the death of the homeless Byrd, the conclusion is still positive. Byrd, after years of seeking, finally is home. Birdie gains the courage to seek a better home, a better life.
The relationship between the two characters is the play. Their relationship confirms the principle that all human life has dignity, that everyone needs to both give and receive and that the real sadness in the world is aloneness and the real joy is the opportunity for human beings to connect. Each of the characters has a special mission, a special gift to give the other.
Both actors gave strong performances. Myra Lucretia Taylor was powerful as Birdie, a woman searching for her strength as surely as Byrd was searching for his identity (Proof of this for me is that I know what she looks like, meaning that her performance was compelling enough for me to take my eyes off of David :>)..) She conveyed a wide range of emotions and was believable in all.
David was incredible. While I am a stalwart fan, I am not a blind one and can even admit that he has been in some really bad films, so I think I can be somewhat objective. I had never seen him perform on stage before, but after Sunday I know one thing surely. He IS a stage actor. He BELONGS in the theater. While I have enjoyed him in so many things...too numerous to mention...the full scope of his acting ability comes across truly in front of an audience. Just by raising an eyebrow and giving a smirky little smile, he can convey so much. His portrayal of a somewhat manic old man sent him from moments of euphoria to moments of despair and he switched gears effortlessly (okay so it seemed effortlessly). He was able to make the audience connect to a man who most of us would look away from on the street or on the subway and make us realize that we all have worth and something worth saying.
One reviewer said that the play and the characters were not believable. I can only agree in one respect. There was no way I could believe that McCallum was a 76 year old man. He doesn't even look his 67 years. Limber and lithe, with a twinkle in his eyes, he could easily have passed for a man ten years younger than his own age, but then there is that willing suspension of disbelief that I always teach the students in my literature classes.
Which brings me (in a fragment I know) to a final point. I know that many of the review have not been great, some downright bad, but I have always wondered about critics and their qualifications to judge. Are their opinions more valid than mine or yours? I think not. For one, I do have a degree in English from Washington University, a well respected institution often referred to as the Harvard of the Midwest (we refer to Harvard as the Wash U of the East...snicker..), so I think that gives some credence to my opinions. More importantly, however, is the fact the I love the theater...I love plays...I love actors who have the courage to put themselves on the line for us night after night. The play moved me, which was its purpose. As a playgoer, out to simply to take part in a theatrical experience, I think I my humble opinion has worth.
- Cindy Bellinger