Kari Elizabeth Godfrey, Tim Reddy, and Ankita Ashrit Photo by Heather Edwards

McPherson, known for his way with dark and eerie subject matter (The Weir, Shining City, The Seafarer), wrote The Birds in 2009 for Dublin's Gate Theatre. Like the iconic Alfred Hitchcock film, this play was inspired by a Daphne Du Maurier story originally published in the author's 1952 collection of six stories, "The Apple Tree." Also, like Hitchcock, McPherson veers from Du Maurier's narrative and greatly expands upon it. What all three have in common is a depiction of human society being rendered helpless by all the birds of the world, who wage a sudden and unified attack on all men, women and children, leaving most of their victims dead. The characters we see are trying, against the odds, to survive.

Du Maurier's story was set on the coast of Cornwall, while Hitchcock's film takes place on the Pacific coast, north of San Francisco. McPherson sets his play in the near future, somewhere in New England. Though we don't see anything but the front room of an abandoned house in which three people take shelter from the birds' wrath, their descriptions of the vicinity give the sense that it is a rural setting. We can hear surf pounding outside, and we are told that there is a lake nearby.

After a good sampling of what the attack of the avians sounds like, the play begins with one of those people, Diane (Kari Elizabeth Godfrey), fiddling with a radio, trying to get a signal to learn what is happening around them. We catch brief snatches of news reports that inform us of the widespread range of the attacks, and ways in which social order is shutting down as a result, but each signal fades, and Diane finally gives up. Nat (Tim Reddy) enters–he had been sleeping for two days, since they fought their way into this house. We don't know how they teamed up, and the two are visibly uncomfortable together, especially Diane–a woman alone in an isolated place with a man she knows nothing about. Nat tries to be reassuring, and first impressions are that he is trustworthy.

He makes a fire in a wood stove and she rifles through assorted groceries left by the homeowners, who no doubt fled from the bird attacks or were away and never made it back. The birds squawk and flap their wings against the roof and boarded-up windows, trying to gain entry. Through their halting conversation we learn that Diane is a writer, separated from her husband and was on her way to visit her grown daughter. Nat has no biological children, but feels a bond with his ex-girlfriend's two kids, ages 6 and 8, though he hasn't seen them for 10 months. Nat also reveals that he was locked up in an institution by his ex, who, he claims, severely over-reacted to a difficult time he had been going through. He assures Diane that he is fine now, though she is clearly unsettled by his history.

The birds' assaults come in waves, and Nat perceives that the attacks follow the tides. When the tide is out, the birds relent, retreating with the ocean; when the tide comes back in, the birds attack. This gives Nat and Diane a daily reprieve of about six hours in sunlight, granting them time to search for groceries and other necessities. Along with no phone service and no electricity, they have no car, or if they do, there is no gas–it is never broached. We only know that they are constrained by how far they can go on foot and back in six hours. The nearest town is barely close enough to make it there and back, and they are hesitant to take the chance.

One day, Diane spots a man (Jon Stentz) outside a house across the lake from them. A neighbor could be helpful, except Diane also sees that he carries a gun. Would he use it against them? Another chance they won't take.

Nat and Diane are aware that their provisions are being used up faster than they can be replaced, when a third survivor of the attack comes to their door, desperate for shelter. Julia (Ankita Ashrit), barely an adult, describes some of the horrible things she has seen. She had been hiding with a group of her peers, a treacherous bunch with whom she felt unsafe, so she plotted to slip away. Diane and Nat let her stay–Nat more agreeable than Diane–and she earns her keep by venturing out on junkets and returning with large amounts of food and other goods. Julia is an enigma in terms of her place within their threesome; at times she appears to look to Nat and Diane as parent figures, other times as pals, and sometimes marks Diane as her competitor for Nat's attention.

As they say, "the plot thickens," with the dynamics among these three becoming increasingly tangled, with the specter of food running out and a diminishing number of places left to search for more, and the attacks from overhead continue, unrelenting. McPherson is a master of setting up unsettling circumstances with jaw-clenching tension. The tension builds toward intermission, and picks up right where it left off without a lapse in the second act. Joe Hendren's adroit direction keeps the characters on course as they use whatever wits and wiles they have to survive until–until what? That is, perhaps, the most frightening unknown quantity throughout the play.

The phenomenal cast present vivid portrayals of their characters. Godfrey captures all of Diane's fears and ticks, her darting eyes trying to stay alert to any possible unseen dangers, as much within the house as from attacking birds. She allows us to see Diane visibly gird her resolve when an act calls for courage. Reddy, as Nat, conveys the spirit of a man who has been beaten down, expecting no more in life than to simply survive. In some ways this may make the predicament less taxing for him, for he is accustomed to living a life under siege. Ashrit gives an engrossing performance, dexterously weaving Julia's three faces–victim, teammate, and seductress–into a survivor's mask. Ashrit, Reddy, and Godfrey bring great authenticity to their characters' interactions, most visibly in an unlikely birthday party scene. Jon Stentz makes a strong impression in his brief appearance as the gun-toting neighbor, laying bare the reality in which they all find themselves with unsettling candor.

Forest Godfrey's exceptional sound design, already mentioned, is fully complemented by Bill Larsen's terrific lighting design, and Heather Edwards has designed numerous diverse props that aptly serve the narrative. The set, with no designer credited, is simple but highly effective, establishing the starkness of this refuge, once a home for someone else, but for Diane, Nat, and Julia, just a hiding place.

The play specifies that it is set in the near future, and we can speculate about what has prompted the birds' total attack on humanity. Is it to stop mankind before we totally destroy an environment in which they can live? Have their minds been poisoned by contaminants let loose in the atmosphere, trigging their aggressive behavior? It is a total worldwide attack, and therefore would either have to have been planned–and we failed to know that birds had such a capacity–or be the result of some extreme triggering incident that set them all off at once. The playwright leaves us to guess, and perhaps in doing so, to bring out our own worst fears about what tomorrow may bring.

In any event, the cause seems of secondary concern to our characters, who are focused on survival. Even the question of why survive–why struggle so to carry on in a world torn asunder, at least as far as meeting the needs of humankind?–is given just glancing attention, when the prospect of future generations is addressed. But no matter how bleak the landscape, how untenable the prospect of a future for mankind, they maintain the will to survive. The birds may have no choice in the matter–their instinct is to survive. For human beings, is it instinct or will? Or are they one and the same?

The Birds is a thriller, saturated with suspense, that keeps us questioning and guessing from its first to its last minute. It uses a simple but totally horrific premise to present a sampling of how humans might cope with such a crisis, drawing on traits both admirable and unscrupulous. Theatrex, with meager resources, has staged a wholly engrossing, splendidly realized production of The Birds that flies high.

The Birds, produced by Theatrex, runs through April 27, 2025, at The Hive Collaborative (formerly Dreamland Arts Theatre), Hamline Ave. N., St. Paul MN. For tickets and information, please visit www.theatrex.org. For information about The Hive Collaborative, visit thehivecollaborativemn.com.

Playwright: Conor McPherson, from a story by Daphne du Maurier; Director: Joe Hendren; ; Lighting Design: Bill Larsen; Sound Designer: Forest Godfrey; Props Designer: Heather Edwards; Stage Manager: Erin Anderson; Producer: Joe Hendren.

Cast: Ankita Ashrit (Julia), Kari Elizabeth Godfrey (Diane), Tim Reddy (Nat), Jon Stentz (Tierney). Sara Feinberg, Nick Miller, Marcie Panian, and Kjer Whiting as radio voices.