Review by Kate Gaul
Irish theatre company Sunday’s Child presents Hildegard Ryan’s and Eva O’Connor’s “Chicken” in the intimate Women’s Locker Room. Sunday’s Child is a new writing theatre company founded in 2010.
We sit in the round and a woman (Eva O’Connor) enters wearing an eleborate chicken costume and red face paint. This is a character called Don Murphy, a stoic rooster who has been raised as a strong Irish lad. He is nearly crushed under foot as an egg. Rescued by and Irish couple from a chicken farm he grows ups in Kerry but dreams of the big city and stardom. And so, begins the troubled tale of a chicken trying to make it in the film industry of New York City. Fame doesn’t come easy to Don and soon the allure of drugs leads him on the path of addiction. With lights and sound accompanying the performance, Don takes his first line of ketamine and the rush of his first high before he begins to unravel. Don meets and falls for a beautiful starlit silkie from Dallas whose activist friends are taking a stand against the appalling conditions in the meat industry. But it isn’t until Don is invited home to Kerry for his role in “Chicken Run” that he begins to understand the true monstrosities that occur to animals and in particular – chickens! This is where Don can find and fill the higher purpose he has always sought.
In the small room where “Chicken” plays for Edinburgh Fringe – and with a full house and no air con – the temperature rises ferociously. The chicken makeup is running down the face to the performer and their sheer resilience to carry on surreally mirrors that of Don the chicken they play. The work has been directed to have the actor circle the stage for the entire hour. There’s the repetitive pecking and chicken-like head movements, wing flaps and bent chicken legs are cute. I believe this is derived from bouffon clowning techniques.
This is a dramatic and comedic monologue cast in and absurd vein. To the credit of the team – by the end of the hour the audience are totally empathising with Don: they are a real chicken – ah, the power of suspension of disbelief! That the play also finds inventive ways to critique the meat industry and exploitation of animals and humans is ambitious. The jokes didn’t always land for me, and I found some of the accents employed between characters presented tricky to understand. A combination of heat and the even tempo of playing had me struggling to stick with it. But it’s been a hit at the fringe and is now sold out.
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