By: Darryl Reilly
“I am a singing bird from the East, a colorful singing bird.” So, begins venerable playwright Bina Sharif’s ravishing, dreamy and hard-edged idiosyncratic fable, Stream of Consciousness of Singing Birds. This “poem play’s” intended engagement at the Theater for the New City was recently postponed due to Ms. Sharif’s impending knee surgery. That institution has been her artistic haven since the 1980’s; a mounting of the show there is planned for the fall. To mitigate this disappointing development, a spirited reading of the work took place on Sunday, May 4, 2025. It was held at the recently opened No Nazar Café in the East Village. This inviting venue offers a variety of exceptional coffees and delectable pastries; with its exotic décor it was an ideal milieu for this entrancing, simple presentation. Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons was meant to be heard throughout.
I don’t fly anymore; my wings have been clipped. I am injured…
Sharif played her poignant character Bulbul, a disaffected bird who encounters several contrary figures on her surrealistic odyssey. “You charge people for talking? Why should I pay you, I am always talking!” She says to a snide psychologist. “Suicide can be a choice” is one of his sardonic bromides. Stream of Consciousness of Singing Birds is the latest of Sharif’s latter small-scale, one-act plays. It is comprised of brief scenes, which whimsically and bluntly dramatize her perpetual theme, the idealistic artist beaten down by craven materialists. The wounded bird is a metaphor for the crushed nonconformist. Melancholy and absurdism loom; the effervescent dialogue is comic, yet profound. The current state of the world is obliquely referenced during this edgy fantasia.
Whether beautifully singing in Farsi, reading her lines with her innate, eternal girlishness, or simply beaming when not speaking, the magnetic Sharif delivered a tremendous and affective performance. Sitting beside her was her husband and long-time collaborator, the distinguished actor Kevin Mitchell Martin. With his twinkling presence, expressive voice and distinctive speech patterns, he was the perfect foil to channel her marked sensibility. Mr. Martin was Cardinal, another singing bird who was from the West; he grandly sang “Strangers in the Night.”
I didn’t fit in; I never got a part…Drama might be the only thing to save me…
A key scene takes place at a drama school. We learn that the two birds are really the alter egos of a failed actress and an inconsequential acting teacher. “Before England, I was from New Jersey” he pompously intones.
“You were born the two most unimportant people” roars The Voice of Revelation at the duo during a pivotal, Shavian speech laden with harsh takedowns of them in relation to their place in upper class New York City society. Sedate Wayne Kral was hilarious reciting this screed with deadpan, gleeful gusto.
This incarnation of Stream of Consciousness of Singing Birds was very funny and moving, its future staged production awaits.
Life is an unending song, a song of pain...Life just passes by, and makes no sense in the end…
Stream of Consciousness of Singing Birds (May 4, 2025)
No Nazar Café, 280 East 10th Street, in Manhattan
Running time: 60 minutes with no intermission