Arye Gross and Jacqueline Misaye (photo by Jenny Graham)
Reviewed by Socks Whitmore
Odyssey Theatre Ensemble
Through Sep Nov 18
Fall is officially upon us, and with it comes the opening of another Odyssey Theatre Ensemble production: Birds of North America, a one-act two-hander by Anna Ouyang Moench. In a suburban Baltimore home, John shares his love of birdwatching with his adult daughter Caitlyn as they casually discuss the shifting landscapes of their lives. The complicated relationship between these two unfolds through a series of conversations and autumn vignettes spanning the mid-2000s to 2010s — offering commentary on communication, human nature, and the immense damage we have done to the environment over the past few decades.
The most masterful element of this piece is easily the character writing. Though the first half hour of dialogue is dragged down by clunky packaging, the gradual reveal of two people’s elaborately unfolding lives through subtext and snapshot moments is overall impressively executed. One charming feature is John’s inclination towards info-dumping; he periodically nerds out and offers insightful scientific facts to Caitlyn (and the audience). He also goes on some humorously — if painfully — dad-ish rambles and a few mansplaining rants about topics such as miscarriage and his vendetta against international travel.
John (Arye Gross) reads as both sincerely nuanced and palpably neurodivergent (though he likely doesn’t know it) — he passionately expresses intellectual beliefs of all kinds, yet at times is completely oblivious to his daughter’s feelings. His blithe responses push Caitlyn away as her dreams of writing, love, and motherhood drift out of reach. Jacqueline Misaye’s Caitlyn, by contrast, is often stiff; it takes a long warm up to freshen her excessively stale delivery. Unfortunately, due to a technical failure, on September 23 the show was performed without sound effects. These would have offered a wide variety of bird calls, environmental underscoring, and transitional music strategically positioned to enhance immersion — the play simply isn’t the same without that part of the experience. In particular, each of the last few scenes awkwardly carry a false sense of finale and more than once almost “fake out” the audience into thinking the play is over.
As a brilliant yet struggling liberal scientist working in vaccine development, John makes a fascinating foil to his daughter, whose faltering writing career drives a steady drift into work at companies with conservative values. The play dynamically illustrates how today’s generation can be drawn into right-wing ideologies (even if they were raised by leftists) when systemic inequity forces them to prioritize their own welfare in order to survive. Though John’s pressure on Caitlyn to change careers is overly intense, and his communication is far from perfect, he makes a striking point — it’s never too late to start over, and it’s selfish to refuse to when change is necessary. With intergenerational divides at an all-time high, the core argument at the heart of this play is timelier than ever.
Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., West LA; Fri.-Sat., 8 pm, Sun., 2 pm, Mon., Oct. 16 & 30, 8 pm, dark Sun., Sept 24; thru Nov. 18; www.OdysseyTheatre.com Running time: one hour and 40 minutes.
