Chicken | Jermyn Street Theatre

It's not rare to see theatre productions telling a story with the protagonist being an actor. However, it's unprecedented to have the main character being a rooster who wants to be an actor. Chicken, a one-woman show written by Eva O'Connor and Hildegard Ryan, is a tale that tells such a story. After a successful run at the Edinburgh Fringe, this absurdist piece arrives at Jermyn Street Theatre.

Don Murphy is an Irish rooster who has always had a clear goal of becoming a film star. To fulfil his ambition, he comes to New York. After ingratiating a director, he gradually gets closer to the position he wants. In the process, he also gets addicted to ketamine and experiences several relationships. However, he slowly realises that seeing the likes of him often on the plate at the dinner table has always made him uncomfortable. When he discovers countless chickens in captivity during the filming process of Chicken Run, he begins a heroic revolt.

In the context of such a story, there is not much need for a complicated set. The floor is covered with a pale yellow carpet and nothing else. Most of the time, the stage is lit by warm yellow lights (Marianne Nightingale). At the beginning and end of the story, there is a shadow of a cage reflected on the floor. It is in a scene like this when O'Connor walks out in a well-made chicken costume (Bryony Rumble). She lifts her feet high with each step, stretches her neck as she walks and quickly glances around, flapping her wings every once in a while and even occasionally pecking at the ground and the audience's thighs. And she maintains this throughout the show, walking around almost without stopping for a moment. Her portrayal of a chicken is certainly very successful. Not only that, but she has a unique and endearing sense of humour that makes you want to smile in a friendly way, whether it's the way she flaps her feathers in triumph or winks.

The concept of this one-woman show and the perspective from which the story is told is very interesting. It appears to be about a chicken, but it's really about humans. Unfortunately, both the main character and the storyline still lack a bit of intrigue, and while one can feel the satire and criticism of the industry's unspoken rules, it doesn't go far enough to get to the core of the issue. But even so, Chicken does bring a wind of novelty not only to one-woman shows but to all theatres as well.

★★★☆☆ (3*)

Gifted tickets in return for an honest review