The Birds & the Bees

Arts Club Granville Island Stage until October 26, 2019
Tickets from $29 at artsclub.com or 604-687-1644

Posted October 3, 2019

If the Arts Club Granville Island stage didn’t have a roof, The Birds & the Bees would simply float away. It’s that light.  But the cast – Christopher Allen, Tom McBeath, Susinn McFarlen and Dawn Petten – are so good at what they do, I found myself sometimes laughing in spite of myself. Top of the list for laughs: sexually inexperienced entomology grad student Ben trying to get skin-tight jeans off very, very recently separated Sarah. Allen bounces Petten up and down, almost dragging her off the bed before they get down to business. “How was I?” asks Ben over-eagerly and it’s pretty obvious it’s his first time.

Horny and very sexually experienced Earl (McBeath) has no trouble satisfying Sarah’s mother Gail (McFarlen). He’s in his 60s, she’s a bit younger and, post coitus, they both look happy but exhausted.

So what do we have? An older couple, a twenty-three year old student and a recently separated woman of thirty-eight all hoping to get laid.

What more would we expect from a play called The Birds & the Bees?

But real birds and real bees figure in the plot, too: Gail is a bee farmer whose bees are mysteriously dying leaving neighbouring tenant farmer Earl with few pollinators. And Gail’s daughter Sarah is a turkey farmer who has come home to mother when her marriage collapses.

So Mark Crawford’s play is really all about birds and bees on a couple of levels. But his attempt in Act 2 to bring some relevancy or depth into it are charming but not exactly profound: “If things don’t work out the way you planned, change the plan”, says Sarah.

Director Lauren Taylor takes the comedy as broad as it will go with McBeath’s plumber butt, McFarlen’s old lady underwear, Petten’s no-nonsense rooting around in Allen’s jockey shorts (with Allen still in them) and Allen’s removal of said shorts to bare his ass to the cheering audience. Chekhov it ain’t.

There’s nary a subtle bone in this production but terrific comedic chops kept The Birds & the Bees aloft for the opening night audience. McBeath, as Earl, is remarkably funny in a cantankerous way and McFarlen, as Gail, makes a nice shift from up-tight to up-for-anything. Petten can take a simple line and make it hilarious as when Ben asks Sarah if she “wants to” and Petten enthusiastically replies, “Oh, god yes, would I!”

The role of Ben is the least believable but Allen makes the best of it. Hard to believe a grad student in entomology would be so nervous around bees, wouldn’t have figured out how to deal with being stung, wouldn’t have had sex before twenty-three. Allen goes along with it, milking his character’s nerdiness for all it’s worth.

There’s an abundance of funny one-liners, bedroom and bathroom interruptions and jiggly body parts to keep The Birds & the Bees buzzing for an indulgent audience.

Ted Roberts’ upstairs farmhouse set, warmly lit by Michael K. Hewitt, provides a homey, comfortable, present-day setting. Roberts indicate seasonal change and passage of time via a window, beyond which is a tree, flowering in Spring, leafless and snow-covered in winter. Incidental music is lively and appropriately hoedown.

The Birds & the Bees is predictable, well-done silliness. It might be just the ticket to chase away the October blahs. But if you’re looking for something with more meat on the bones, you’ll want to look elsewhere.