What Do You Think the Birds are Doing? Theatre.
Venue: Gymnasium
Next Performance: Thursday 3 July 12:00
Review
By Benevolence Mazhinji
I knew the story of Jojo and Beatrice would stay with me forever when Beatrice said, “We can’t be like the birds if we keep living like rats.” The existential dread here is not really about birds or a rat but about the brutal, punishing shape of a life lived in fear. The theatre darkened to make way for the two characters who crawled onto the stage through what looked like a tunnel. It felt as though we, as the audience, were crawling in behind them, leaving whatever was outside behind for good. In the middle of their tiny bunker stood a large table that seemed to occupy half the room. On it sat two metal mugs, a box of rooibos teabags and a silver teapot. “Tea is only for Tuesdays,” says Jojo and with this, the audience is made aware that the two have been living through some kind of global crisis that has left them bereft of hope.
What do You Think the Birds are Doing unfolds in this strange, slow space between catastrophe and routine, where nothing happens and yet everything is quietly at stake. Written and directed by Cailyb Prinsloo, the play was born from a post-COVID haze, where survival felt less like heroism and more like inertia. The show is very funny, raw, and relatable – evident in the arguments about whether the rat is a harbinger of death or just a stubborn intruder refusing to leave. Even the way Jojo kept patching up the walls of a house that was clearly falling apart offered us a kind of comedic relief. Between the silences, a soft, engulfing soundtrack would occasionally spill into the room, reminding us that there was once a time when the two were free to go outside, look up at the trees and wonder what the birds were doing.
