Word: birding
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...Institute of Contemporary Art's dual production of two one-act plays by Jeff Robinson shows just how uneven a young writer's work can be. "Live Bird," Robinson's one man exploration of the genius and eventual self-destruction of Charlie Parker, is solid, compelling, and mostly focused. On the other hand, "Alley Cats" is a scatter-shot, histrionic muddle of faces and voices limping towards symbolic meaning and falling short by miles...
...Live Bird" is both rich and dense, condensing in the short space of an hour the history, career, and demise of legendary alto-saxophonist Charlie Parker, who died at 35, wasted by drugs and alcohol. Robinson portrays Parker in the late stages of alcoholism, playing a final gig for desperately needed money. As Robinson mimes interaction with a bartender, a young interviewer, friends, and past-acquaintances at the bar, we learn the sad facts of Parker's short life: his estrangement from wife and child, his destitution in the wake of his fellow musicians' celebrity and success, and his inability...
...awareness of his own role in this destruction. In one scene, he warns a young man not to make the mistakes he has made with drugs and alcohol: "If you mess with that shit you miss the best years of your life, years of pure creation". "Live Bird" makes us realize just how much we've missed out on in losing Charlie Parker so young...
...young woman in the audience, but is less successful when he addresses certain audience members as if they were acquaintances and expects them to improvise their half of the dialogue. These minor excesses are not enough to mar the subtle, touching portrait of Parker painted by Robinson's "Live Bird". Unfortunately, this is just the type of self-indulgence and excess that inflates "Alley Cats" into a cartoonish and unsuccessful mess...
...spokesperson for Queen Elizabeth II on the loss of the queen's pet flamingos to a fox. Only six of the birds were actually killed by the fox, but the seventh bird died of shock...