Birdland

Melbourne Theatre Company’s production of UK post-punk bassist-cum-dramatist Simon Stephens’ Birdland – a beautiful, dark, twisted fantasy – is rivetingly tense. On an international stadium tour, laddish rock hero Paul, mercurially played by Mark Leonard Winter (The Dressmaker), fatefully sleeps with his bandmate Johnny’s girlfriend.

Director Leticia Cáceres sets Birdland, referencing a Patti Smith song in addition to Brecht’s Baal, in a sterile, corporate backstage area – complete, briefly, with lavish rider – as a kinda ‘every scene’. The tragicomedy is a pertinent examination of contemporary fame – the public’s lurid preoccupation with, and objectification of, entertainers – but it also scrutinises celebrities’ conduct. Paul is narcissistic, entitled and immoral (he has coke injected into his eyeballs – gross!). Birdland puts the ‘meta’ into metaphysical. Peta Sergeant (star of cult US supernatural show The Originals) impresses as Jenny, a hotel worker Paul picks up in Russia – and his private one-woman chorus/entourage. She then portrays a laconic detective as Birdland becomes a revenge play, Paul peculiarly naive about both the source of his money and the perils of underage groupies, any bodyguard/babysitters MIA. And it’s here Stephens’ emo-porn is less credible, since the music world he renders no longer exists, rock’s excessive, delusional megastar lost to the late ‘90s’ industry contraction necessitated by technological upheaval. There are now new breeds of star – including the shrewdly pragmatic ‘indie’ muso.