Fringe Review: The Birds moving, funny, slightly weird
Stage 1, Westbury Theatre, 10330 84 Ave.
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Talented Edmonton dancers Krista Lin and Anastasia Maywood have a very clever idea here in deciding to inhabit the often-goofy remnants of Earth's once-mighty dinosaur domineers. While beautiful and seriously fascinating, birds skew a bit weird by human standards in their expansive diversity (think penguins or horny birds of paradise twitching about their little constructs).
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So almost the only negative thing to say about this choreographed, music-cue-heavy clown performance is that it drags a little, though not enough to call it The Boreds or anything. David Attenborough parodies are a little tired, too, and if I hear Right Said Fred's I'm Too Sexy one more time at a Fringe play…
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That goose hissing out of the way, this series of skits starts with a pair of amateur birdwatchers excited to see utterly common local birds (blue jay, goldfinch, etc.) until the lights come up and they start finding wilder examples amid the audience.
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'Any more bald heads in here? No? That's pretty rare,' the two back-and-forth, leading into the buffet's next-level-in framing devices, including the birth and courtship cycle of our rarish albino magpies, demonstrated with accomplished (if inaccurate, haha) body movement and various clever and indeed funny sheddings of body suit layers.
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The bad puns in the game show Natural Selection made this feel more like a kids' play with cursing, and while the fashion show went on a bit (enter I'm Too Sexy), I did laugh pretty hard at the sharp transition from a Versace flamingo to a Joe Fresh seagull.
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Other music cues shone, like the Get Your Freak On club scene after the two birds squawked 'getting ready!' then 'sex!' resulting in Maywood's bird dropping huge exercise ball eggs with Lin hilariously failing to ninja them in unseen.
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