LEFT: Helicopter
mom Chastity
Wright, played by
Katherine Lacaze, left,
campaigns to ban
the children’s book
‘And Tango Makes
Three’ while television
journalist Paula Zahn,
portrayed by Brittania
Williams, is eager to
get the scoop.
RIGHT: The mating
rituals of red tailed
hawks are under
scrutiny in ‘Birds of
a Feather.’ Richard
Bowman, left, as the
macho Pale Male,
swoops in on Lola,
played by Katherine
Lacaze.
Continued from Page 14
‘Birds of a Feather’
“I had fallen in love with the play and I
came to the realization that if this show was
going to come to the North Coast I was the
one to bring it,” Branson said.
She’s excited for the project, but acknowl-
edged a learning curve in her transition to
directing. “It is still new territory,” she said.
Banned
“Birds of a Feather” was written just over
a decade ago by Marc Acito, a former opera
singer and writer of gay humor, who has
strong ties to Portland. His work includes
the libretto for “Allegiance,” a musical about
World War II era Japanese American intern-
ment camps which drew on actor George
Takei’s childhood.
The play features penguins and hawks,
and plots inspired by true stories. Two male
chinstrap penguins at New York’s Cen-
tral Park Zoo made news headlines when
they hatched a stray egg and raised a chick
together.
A subsequent children’s book about them,
“And Tango Makes Three,” by Peter Parnell
and Justin Richardson, was hailed by profes-
sionals as an appropriate way to introduce
grade schoolers to the concept of LGBTQ
families, but was soon banned by schools and
libraries across the United States.
The hawks, nested in a ritzy Manhattan
residential building, delight New Yorkers
with hope after the events of Sept. 11, 2001,
but infuriate wealthy Fifth Avenue property
owners who try to drive them out.
Love
Actor Richard Bowman, another veteran
of the North Coast theater scene, portrays
the more nurturing of the penguin dads and
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a hawk who epitomizes toxic masculinity.
“Roy is a sweet, lovable male who is quite
content in his skin and finds that the attention
people give him suits him well,” Bowman
said. “On the other end of the spectrum is
Pale Male, the ego maniac red-tailed hawk.”
Amid the humor, Bowman savors the
play’s message. “The story is about a lot of
different things, but at the end of the day it’s
about love,” he said. “There is a lot of com-
edy throughout the play and a lot that makes
the actors, and hopefully the audience, ask
themselves the tough questions about love
and relationships.”
Brittania Williams portrays Paula Zahn,
a television journalist, while Darren Hull
appears as her property developer husband
Richard Cohen. Preston C. Roper is Silo, the
other penguin dad, while Katherine Lacaze
plays Lola, the other hawk, and Cameron
Lira appears as a zookeeper.
Photos by Patrick Webb
‘Birds of a Feather’ director Ann Bronson.
rience with theater in Long Beach, Wash-
ington, as stage manager as well as Mick
Alderman, a professional set and lighting
designer. Gad Perez was given the chal-
lenge of creating the costumes, which may
not appear as one might imagine. “Peo-
ple are not wearing penguin suits and hawk
costumes,” Bronson said. A set of stage
directions read that “Roy is black and white
and appears fastidiously dressed, but he is,
in fact, a penguin.”
Bronson wishes that audiences could
read Acito’s stage directions, because they
are as funny as the dialogue. One describes
Roy as, “a penguin that you would like to
have a beer with.” Another labels one of
Lacaze’s additional characters, a book ban
campaigner, as “a helicopter mom with
extremely sharp blades.”
“It’s a very funny play and there are
some heart-rending parts of it,” Bronson
said. “It ends hopefully, so I hope that peo-
ple will take away that where there’s love
there’s hope — and love can take a lot of
different forms, not just romantic love, but
parent and child, and between best
friends.”
Directions
To assist Bronson, the troupe recruited
Olivia Johnston, who has significant expe-
Thursday, June 16, 2022 // 15