Parakeet

By Danai Paraskevopoulou

Image courtesy of Boundless Theatre

How can we change the world? This was the question addressed by Boundless Theatre and Boom Shakalaka productions, who were at the Gulbenkian theatre on 5 December 2019 with their performance, Parakeet.

The story of Parakeet is about a teenage girl who has just moved to Margate and feels isolated from the world. She is in love with the exotic birds Parakeets and she goes every day to her special tree to observe them. There, she meets two new friends and together they make a band named after the birds. They work together to find their voices and use their punk songs to start their own revolution. With great energy, the actors took their audience with them as they travelled in the world making justice, defending themselves, and talking about what they believe in.

Before the performance started, the writer, Brigitte Aphrodite, gave the audience markers and suggested that we draw onto our skin whatever we feel during the performance, as well as anything we believe causes injustice in the world, in order to feel free and express ourselves through the drawings. Immediately, I felt very close to her and observed how this exercise brought the audience together because we started talking to each other about what we wanted to draw.

We all have things that bother us, and this show highlighted that we have to be open to talk about them. The actors had great humour and their songs made me feel like I wanted to get up and dance with them. The stage was simple, which helped the actors make quick changes through the different scenes.

Although it was a simple stage, it made it easier for the audience to keep up and understand clearly what was happening, which was one of the things I liked most about the performance. The show was about expressing oneself and finding one’s identity in this weird world. It also implicitly addressed feminist issues and discussed how as women, we have to stick together and be faithful to what we believe in.