STUPID FUCKING BIRD
AARON POSNER
Following her critically acclaimed production of Kindertransport, which premiered at the Queen’s Theatre in Hornchurch to rave reviews and then toured Luxembourg and the UK, Anne Simon returns this season with a repertoire she loves and handled so well in her production of All NewPeople in 2016: the edgy, witty, and dark American comedy.
Aaron Posner’s Stupid Fucking Bird is an irreverent, contemporary, and very funny remix of Chekhov’s famous The Seagull, containing all the intensity, tragedy and most importantly the humour which Chekhov was a master at, while maintaining the essence of Chekhov’s iconic story – and the bird in the title.
Kind, hopeful Dev suffers from an unrequited love for Mash, who is desperately in love with Con, a passionate playwright, who is deeply in love with Nina, his beautiful, vibrant muse, who seems to love him back, until she becomes entranced by Trigorin, a literary star who happens to be dating Con’s mother Emma, a successful, but terribly commercial actress – in the eyes of her son. With a dead bird, a gun, and a little help from the audience, Con might be able to win Nina’s heart again or at least feed his own tentative, morbid creativity…
In this funny and compassionate reboot of Chekhov’s classic, Posner has created a strong, energetic ensemble piece, a hilarious and moving meditation on love, life, and art. Whereas The Seagull already deals with the timeless battle between young and old, past and present, theatre and reality in search of the true meaning of it all, Posner’s template will see Anne Simon take this premise a step further. She intends to push the boundaries of the play within a play as her version will see a troupe of mixed international actors try to mount the Russian dramatist’s expectationladen coming-of-age story. In the process, they might well end up facing the same questions and struggles as the characters in the play: reconsidering how art, love, and revolution fuel their own individual pursuit of happiness.
With Matthew Brown, Isaac Bush, Catherine Elsen, Elisabet Johannesdottir, Rita Reis, Raoul Schlechter, Owen Sharpe
Director Anne Simon
Set & Costume Design Clio Van Aerde
Artistic Collaborators and Assistant Directors Tom Dockal, Claire Wagener
Make-up Joël Seiller
Set and Costume Trainee Mhari Glober
Sound and lighting design Team Théâtres de la Ville
de Luxembourg
Water Ballet Sequence choreographed by Isaac Bush
Set construction Workshop of the Théâtres de la Ville
Wardrobe & props Anne Bonelli
Seamstress Madelina Eischen
Production Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg