The Dodo Bird
Last Sunday was an unsettling day. Perhaps the fact that the weather all day was blustry and grey with winds of 30+MPH should have tipped me off. It became a day where things were left unsettled, strewn about like so many autumn leaves, within and without the heart and soul.
It started innocently enough. By Sunday’s matinee of Forum I have usually expended enough energy for one week, and look forward to the three days off between weeks. My energy level tends to be down, and my muscles begin to cramp up from the week’s efforts. This seems to be nature’s cruel way of not letting me forget I am getting older. I want to do my best to hide from this reality, but I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I have to do twice as much now to stay physically rested, prepared and in shape than my younger colleagues. The show went well enough, and I was surprised this past week that both the Saturday and Sunday matinee audiences were more lively and responsive than the Saturday night crowd. I also noticed the fact that there were good-sized houses this week, ready to enjoy this mindless bit of fluff.
I had made plans to stay in town Sunday evening to attend an “artists night” performance of The Dodo Bird, one of the plays on my fall preview list. Ofenttimes in Buffalo a production will have a performance on an “off night” such as Sunday evening or Monday evening so that actors in other shows can see work by other companies. It’s a nice touch. I wanted to see the new space built by Road Less Travelled Productions, and was looking forward to socializing with others in the Buffalo theatre community.
I had dinner with Eileen and Dan. Dan is in the show, and Eileen and I go back to 1989 when I begam working in the city. The conversation was pleasant, full of the usual banter about the local theatre buzz and whatnot. Dan went to lie down after dinner before the show, and Eileen and I spent the time talking about where we were in our lives and careers. We spent a long time talking about getting maybe five or six people together in a room, pooling some financial resources, and starting a theatre in Buffalo which specialized in American classics – the American Classic Theatre of Buffalo. I chimed in that I’d like to be able, in such a theatre, to bring in one or two hot indie plays from New York which would not be getting produced anytime soon via French or Dramatists as part of such a season.
But eventually the conversation came down to two questions: does Buffalo need another theatre? And the BIG question – who would come? The questions were left unresolved for the time being, but they began to stick in my gut as the evening wore on. The questions were prompted by the fact that RLT Productions had just opened their new space and, with the exception of opening night, had been playing to houses of 3 and 5 people. Granted, it’s a new company, but they received a good deal of press and were producing the play of one of Buffalo’s favorite sons, Manny Fried. Maybe they need time to grow, and the answer will appear over that time. But the questions linger….
I left for the show, and when I got there I saw a number of people and it was fun to catch up and say hello. The house was about 50%, almost entirely theatre people. The show itself was fabulous. The Dodo Bird is set in a bar in Buffalo during the heyday of its steel-mill glory. Three men who work in the same plant come into the bar for their post-work whiskey shot(s) and beer. Bull is a huge man, loud and obnoxious. He is the former chief steward of the plant, a major labor position. “Dodo Bird” (his actual name is never given) is a small, mealy-mouthed man in his mid-50s who has become an alcoholic, talks to chairs and tables, and has spent time in dry-out clinics. He arrives at the bar, as he says, to meet his daughter for the first time in many years. He has resolved not to drink before meeting his daughter at the bar. Bull spends the first part of the play harassing and intimidating Dodo, accusing him of making up his “daughter.” Russ is the new, clean chief steward, and he comes in to act as something of a middle-man, lukewarmly defending Dodo as much to stick it to Bull as anything else. The play builds to a climactic monologue by Dodo, a man bent and broken, who knew only the comfort and security of working a machine, and whose life fell apart when his plant closed. Echoes of Death of A Salesman abound in the play as we watch this tiny man crumble in front of our eyes. We get a faint glimmer of hope when, by the end, his daughter does show up to meet him. Gerry Maher gives an astounding performance as the Dodo, a man whose time has come and gone, and who has wings but can’t fly. His total emotional vulnerability by the end leaves us emotionally moved as no other medium can. The cast of Dan Walker, Greg Natale, Jermaine Cooper and Gerry Maher create a marvelous ensemble in this 90-minute piece.
I left the theatre feeling that this was a piece I really wanted to be in, and in some ways it made me feel like a theatrical dodo bird. Big and ugly, with wings too little to fly. Might theatre, as an art form, be the artistic dodo bird of the 21st century? If so, I was gratefult for one good night of theatre, one of the best I’ve had in a long time. And yet I left somewhat personally depressed, knowing that so many will see the mindless fluff of Forum, while so few will see the cathartic Dodo Bird. I drove home knowing I have more questions to resolve rather than answers to give. -twl
