The Bird Lovers
From the Publisher
From the Translator's Introduction
From a Letter by the Author
Selected Song Lyrics (by various
translators)
More about The Bird Lovers on this
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A German delegation of bird lovers has descended upon a small Italian village in order to establish a bird sanctuary. The local "hunting club" not only claims war on the delegates because of their [own] love of eating nightingales and larks, but because -- made up as they are of former Italian partisans—they recognize in the bird lovers two former Nazi executioners. Carefully they plot to capture the former Nazis and bring them to trial.
But the kangaroo trial which takes up the second act of this engrossing and forceful study of evil ends in an unexpected manner, as the so-called judges are forced to study the nature of evil—and the nature of themselves.
Unfortunately, the central problem of [Bjørneboe's] work has only increased in importance since his death. The tragicomic plotline of The Bird Lovers continues to be played out over and over again from Argentina to El Salvador, from Cambodia to the former East Germany and on into the near future of South Africa and the former Yugoslavia. The problem is simple to state: what price does Justice demand for crimes committed in the name of the State? The answer is impossible to know (as the Hunting Club of Torre Rosse will find out in the second act). How does the demand of Justice for retribution differ from personal vengeance (reserved for the Divine in the Old Testament)? Or can Justice forgive the agents of an evil State, an option that as far back as Antigone has smacked of complacency?
The hunters of a small Italian Town are being pressured by German tourists to stop shooting song birds. In the course of their negotiations, they recognize two of the Germans as former military officers. These officers conducted tortures, punishments and executions two decades previously when the Nazis controlled this part of Italy. The Italians capture them and conduct a kangaroo trial as the preliminary to hanging them. But the Germans appeal to their sense of justice and succeed in getting the local defrocked priest to plead for them.
Father Piccolino tries every moral argument he can think of to get his fellow townsmen to understand the problem of moral agency in the actions individuals commit during a war. In these arguments Bjørneboe catalogs the legacy of evil that is the history of all civilizations. But the Italians are buying none of this. The Germans must die! Until Piccolino introduces one more consideration: a consideration that he argues not as an abstract moralizer but as a priest, as someone trying desperately to save two men from death. It is the consideration of economic self-improvement: greed.
The play now takes its comic bitter trajectory towards its final déenouement as the Italians realize, one by one, which side of their bread is buttered. The final burlesque of the crucifixion provides an electrifying ending that dissolves ironically into Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.
Though Bjørneboe's vision is unrelentingly dark, his commitment to the values of the theater engages the audience in an exciting participation. He delights in irony and often takes a grim joy in ambiguity. His theater is high energy with songs ranging from romantic to brutal, colorful staging and cross-cutting the humorous with the grotesque. His self acknowledged mentor is Bertolt Brecht, but the juicy quality of The Bird Lovers avoids the analytic dryness of the alienation techniques (Verfremdung) that Brecht uses.
The Bird-Lovers is not a play about Germans. It does not accuse the intruders who come to buy—it is not the "Germans" who are accused. The "Italians"—Rosa, Caruso, Marco, we ourselves—are the accused. You do not accuse the wind and the rain. You accuse the people who are too dumb, too cowardly, greedy or indifferent to protect themselves against the wind and the rain.