karie richards
Birdy feels guilty for something that happened before she was even born. She wants to do everything for everyone all the time, to dish out perfect servings of kindness, compassion and empathy to meet all the needs of all the people she might ever encounter in a lifetime. She has been worried since conception about the world that she would someday need to enter and the people that she would someday meet there. A vulnerable wide open soul, Birdy tells us her story of desire for familial connection and memory and her constant assertion of wanting to both walk toward and walk away from her grandfather’s mental illness and the possibility that it might be hereditary.
Karie Richards gives a poetic, gentle and compelling performance as Birdy, who entranced me immediately with her first story about her father teaching her how to shoot targets with her brothers. Birdy explores the emotional continuum, oscillating between what is perceived as “normal” and what is perceived as “extreme” and all the nooks in between showing us continually how connected healthy behaviors are to less healthy ones and how the circumstances we experience bounce us further one way or another along the continuum and how we are ultimately all looking for love, for kindness and for compassion.
It is an insightful piece that may make you want to be a bit more nurturing to the world.
TWISI Rating: 
Birdy closes tonight Sunday September 8th at 7:35pm at the Museum of Natural History. Tickets are $10.00 and are available in advance online at this website or 30 minutes before each show at the venue on the day of the performance. All tickets bought in person must be purchased with either cash or credit. For more information please visit this website or call 902.422.7604 between 10:00am and 5:00pm.
