The Bird Machine

The Bird Machine is a play of technology, a play of object art/puppets: from its environment/landscape, to birds-on-sticks, shadow puppetry, and multi-media. It's a "fable" contemplating our desires to live beyond human limitations. Part I reveals: Leo, the dreamer, obsessed with flying; Vince, the realist, trying to control his world through miniaturization, and then the Emperor, destroying Leo and his flying machine, out of fear, the fear that others will use the flying machine's technology to destroy his city. In Part II, Vince wants to vindicate Leo. He does so by transforming his miniature world into a larger-than-life-size virtual garden, to trap and destroy the Emperor.

Audiences of The Bird Machine will experience two worlds, two technologies. In the beginning, the world is pastoral, the mechanics simple: a bird flaps across stage then soars overhead. As Vince dreams, his desk transforms into the city of the Emperor and the People. In shadows, dreams of buildings, wood, and nature intertwine, illuminating the space. Until Leo's death, the world in which the men invent, competing for the Emperor's favor, is charming, and quaint. Act II, though puppet driven in environment, introduces projections and contemporary technology. Vince's garden overtakes the space; what was wooden is now metallic and plastic, and both the People and the Emperor partake in Vince's machine of illusions, flying and then falling.

The sparse text of the story coupled with elaborate, fantastical visuals makes The Bird Machine a wonderful journey for all.