Everything can be quantified. All worth can be quantified. Artistic worth. Human worth. Material worth. Everything. Some food is simply better than other food. Isn''t it? Some clothes are better than other clothes. Aren''t they?
The last week of a massive international tour and rock star Paul is at the height of his fame. Everybody knows his name. Whatever he wants he can have. He can screw anybody he wants to. He can buy anything he desires. He can eat anything. Drink anything. Smoke anything. Go anywhere. As the inevitability of the end of the road looms closer and a return home becomes a reality, for Paul the music is starting to jar.
Birdland received its world premiere at the Royal Court Theatre Downstairs on 3 April 2014.
Industry Reviews
Stark, dream-like play * WhatsOnStage *
The apparent slickness of the play carries a strong poetic resonance, too, and stands alongside the very best of Stephens' output to date * WhatsOnStage *
Stephens narrates the story with a light touch * The Stage *
the themes of the play come at you with their flies undone * The Arts Desk *
Stephens has written a Continental play for an English stage * The Arts Desk *
The mercurial playwright is back in avant-garde mode after hitting West End gold with 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time' . . . 'Birdland isn't really about rock stars or even rich people - like much of Stephens' work, it's a tragedy about a man incapable of empathising with other people . . . a portrait of one man's Icarus-like mental plummet, so far and so fast and so flashy as to be as exhilarating as it is sad. * Time Out London *
Stephens nails the mix of lascivious bully and childlike innocent in a man living beyond boundaries . . . Stephens can certainly craft a line . . . * The Times *
One of Simon Stephens' strength as a playwright is his ability to create amoral ogres who are charismatic and compelling but not remotely likeable. * Financial Times *
. . . even if the message is familiar, the writing takes you inside the scrabbled brain of Birdland's damaged hero . . . his play's strength lies in its ambivalence towards its main character: Paul may behave like a latter-day Nero, but he shows signs of a redemptive intelligence and is acutely aware of the loss of identity that comes from being constantly in the public gaze. Without exculpating Paul, Stephens shows the invasive pressures that come with stardom. * Guardian *
. . . the extraordinary quality of his sharp writing . . . nails Paul's near schizophrenic contradictions, his tactlessness, his intelligence . . . * Mail on Sunday *
