THE BIRDS is such and interesting and unusual piece of theatre that for me the project is primarily one of exploration: of ideas, characters and space. Birds are typically symbols of freedom and in the piece their freedom is curtailed by Pitcher - his dreams of Blue Sky City, initially an escape from the confines of the world he left behind, become a cage for the birds in which their wings become quite literally clipped. But in some sense their freedom is a false one - in a pre-political, pre-theoretical landscape, a Lockean state of Nature, no one can truly said to be free. In this sense Pitcher does free them - by creating a society he frees them from the physical constraints that had impeded them previously - most explicitly by providing them with the ammunition (both literal and metaphorical) to wage war on the gods.

As an exploration of character the piece provides the interesting challenge of creating a collective, an organic group whose existence has a certain unity. I have sought to explore the idea of a collective made up of distinctive individuals. They still share a unity that comes of a common language (that of music) and a common mode of movement, but they are differentiated by their 'wings' (the coloured scarves that serve both as wings and also as props for those actors who play both man and bird - i.e. Flamingo/rock star) and masks. Their movements, though similar, will also reflect the differences arising from their different types - the Flamingo is flamboyant and proud in her movement, the Owl perhaps a little reticent.

In terms of the space we are drawn back to an exploration of ideas - the chapel is a sacred space, the story a distinctly secular one in which the gods are fickle creatures who are furthermore defeated by mere birds. But it is also a morality tale, a parable that warns us against the inevitable human desire to create utopias. The use of space reflects the social hierarchies: the chapel is the house of the gods while Pitcher, a man, enters through the ante-chapel and the Birds mediate, fluttering between chapel and ante-chapel.