Past Shows
Slow Falling Bird
"Powerful visuals and wrenching personal drama highlight
the world premiere of Christine Evans' "Slow Falling Bird,"...all
the actors are fantastic...in the final scenes the slow falling stops
and the soaring begins."— Chad
Jones, Oakland Tribune 
"Crowded Fire, a company whose modest size hasn't prevented it from producing some exceptional new work by a far-flung assortment of playwrights, gives Bird a capable and thoughtful premiere."— Robert Avila, SF Bay Guardian
"Director Rebecca Novick's visually arresting, dreamlike staging makes the most of the vertical and horizontal planes of Exit on Taylor's black-box space; the production features passionate performances from all nine cast members."— Chloe Veltman, SF Weekly
And check out this preview article from the SF Chronicle:
"On one level it's a play about the daily cruelties in Woomera
Detention Center, where hundreds of refugees are locked away in the
middle of the desert in South Australia...it's immediately apparent,
however, that there's much more going on than just this literal story....
'One of the things I love about it is that while it's dealing with
very topical issues, it's dealing with them in a very theatrical, magical,
surreal way,' says [CF Artistic Director Rebecca] Novick, who's directing
the premiere production."
— Sam Hurwitt
Slow Falling Bird
by Christine Evans
directed by Rebecca Novick
played July 23 – August 20, 2005 at the EXIT on Taylor
Crowded Fire Theater Company presented the World Premiere production of Slow Falling Bird by Christine Evans, an explosive and surreal portrait of refugees and prison guards in Australia's immigrant detention camps. As the tide of refugees fleeing from war-torn parts of the world grows, Evans asks us to explore the question of how we take them in — or leave them on the outside.
Slow Falling Bird weaves together the story of two families: an Iraqi refugee, Zahrah, and her recalcitrant baby, Fishchild, who refuses to be born and hovers above the camp like a malignant guardian angel; and Rick, a prison guard whose wife Joy suffers from depression, agoraphobia, and miscarriages. As the play progresses, Rick and his companion Micko (an Aborigine passing for white, himself a kind of internal refugee) become involved in an increasingly deadly struggle with the refugees under their guard.
Based
on real events in the Woomera Immigration Detention Centre, Slow
Falling Bird goes far beyond the documentary impulse, creating
a hallucinatory world of song and magic that is beautiful, heartbreaking,
and unforgettable. As our own country struggles with our border issues,
and with increasing furor around the detainees in Guantanamo, this
play hits both close enough to home and far enough away to provide
an important perspective on the risks we are taking with our increasingly
unjust policies.
Featuring: Cassie Beck, Sally Clawson, Joseph Estlack,
Jeremiah Christopher Hill, Rami Morgram, Anil Margsahayam, Michael
Storm*, Juliet Tanner and Dan Wolf
Scenic
Design: Joel Frangquist
Costume Design: Bree Hylkema
Lighting Design: Heather Basarab
Sound Design/Music: Cliff Caruthers
Props: Ambra Sultzbaugh
Dramaturg: Christine Young
Assistant Director: Marissa Wolf
Vocal/Dialect Coach: Dawn Elin Frasier
Fight Choreographer: David Meier
Stage Manager: Peggy Powell
Production Manager: Naren Larson
Graphic Design: Julie Baum
Slow Falling Bird was supported in part by
the generosity of:
The Dramatists
Guild
Grants for the Arts
Kaiser Permanente
The LEF Foundation
The Rella
Lossy Award in Playwrighting
The Tournesol Project
*Member Actors' Equity Association. Slow Falling Bird was an Equity-approved project.