See what I did there?
As part of the 2026 Bealtaine Theatre Festival, which brings the best of Irish Theatre to Toronto until June 7, Eva O’Connor’s Chicken opened in the newly refurbished Canada Ireland Foundation (right next to the entrance to Toronto’s Billy Bishop City Airport tunnel).
Before the performance began, an announcement was made that Chicken was the inaugural performance in the Corleck Building. Terrific news to hear.
It’s a theatre-in-the-round setting for this Chicken. Premiering to acclaim at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2023, Chicken is a solo performance art piece that, according to the Canada-Ireland Foundation website, details the rise and fall of a rooster named Don Murphy, a proud Irishman, an addict, and one of his generation’s greatest actors who happens to be a chicken. References to some of today’s film celebrities (Michael Fassbender is only one) are handled with careful aplomb and a candid, matter-of-fact tone suggesting the bird and the star are close friends.
Don immediately breaks the fourth wall to speak with the audience about his big break, his first ‘bird on bird’ experience, and navigating life in the human-dominated world. Over the course of one hour, the audience learns more about Murphy’s ‘chickenness’.
Directed with a penchant for the witty and ribald by Hildegard Ryan, Eva O’Connor delivers a quirky yet strangely enchanting and mesmerizing performance as ‘Don Murphy’. She has terrific fun at the top of the show, playing with audience members in the front row. I was impressed by how she stared at one man in the front row who kept smiling, yet she never flinched as he met her gaze.
In a terrific-looking, colourful costume that just emanates a ‘chickenness’, O’Connor confidently embodies the often fidgety, pecking movements and stance of a henyard fowl. Eva also periodically flicks the costume wings with her arms, just as a genuine chicken would. O’Connor successfully keeps the pace moving along nicely. She addresses audience members in all four corners of the round seating.
While Chicken is often satirical in the way Don handles stardom, since he never thought he would make it as far as he has, there’s also a stern warning in the script about how people learn to deal with celebrity culture and status. Murphy has an addiction. I won’t spoil what it is here. But this addiction is far too common in reading and hearing about celebrity culture and status.
The one issue I have with the performance is the sound. When O’Connor addresses one side of the four corners, I could not hear what she was saying when her back was turned to my side. The plot information is completely lost, and that’s a shame because there are some amusing points I didn’t hear at all. With the few remaining performances, I do hope this can be addressed immediately.
I’m willing to give some slack here, as the theatre performance space in the Corleck has a contemporary, twenty-first-century style with sleek angles.
Overall, Chicken is biting and sharply delivered, with a brave and unconventional performance that draws attention.
Click here: https://www.canadairelandfoundation.com/cif_event/chicken/ about show tickets to May 24 for Chicken.
To find out more about the other productions running at the festival, click here: https://www.canadairelandfoundation.com/
