‘Strange Birds’ Takes Flight

A park ranger and her trainee find blood in the snow outside a trailer. There’s an open door, but no people. Where they went, what happened and how to figure it all out as an impending winter storm arrives is the story of a new play called Strange Birds that centers on five strong, smart and resourceful women, trapped inside of a small, isolated cabin in the mountains of Northeast Oregon. Questions of ethics and morality, and personal and institutional responsibility, are the themes of Strange Birds, which receives an extended preview production February 20-March 1 at UCSB’s Performing Arts Theater as part of the much-lauded Launch Pad program. 

The idea for Strange Birds came to playwright E. M. Lewis when the Oregon native was living in a cabin as part of a writing residency up in the Wallowa Mountains. 

“It’s very rugged and the people are a little bit rough, and when I was there storms were blowing through and there was ice and snow everywhere,” she recalled. “The remoteness and isolation just felt like a great place to set a story.”

Wanting to focus solely on women, as well as a wolf prowling outside the door, Lewis came up with the concept of Strange Birds that also has place as another character. 

“I wanted to explore the interpersonal history, connections and secrets between these women,” explained Lewis, whose previous works include How the Light Gets In and Song of Extinction. “Three of them are sisters, so it’s definitely also a play about sisterhood.”

What starts as a thriller with missing persons turns into questions of what to do about what’s happened, she said. 

“What do you need to do? Who can you trust? What’s the right thing to do perhaps, versus sometimes what’s legal,” she said. “There are personal demons and history as they try to figure out what’s right in their own hearts under complicated moral circumstances.”

Lewis only had about 25 pages of Strange Birds written when she brought it to Launch Pad’s summer reading program two years ago, working with the student actors and professional production team to flesh out the story and come up with an ending. Now it’s Launch Pad’s major preview production in the new-play development program’s 20th anniversary season. 

Getting to spend time in the room with actors and directors lets you see what the play is really made of, because nobody is going to look at your character as closely as the actors who are trying to figure out how to play them,” Lewis said. “They dive right in and ask good questions, which forces me to understand my play even more.” 

Launch Pad founding artistic director Risa Brainin, who is helming the new preview production, has become a big fan of Lewis’ work. 

“She is unafraid to tackle stories of people dealing with the big stuff: grief, illness, marriage, divorce, domestic violence, love, loss and more,” she said. “Her characters are as real as your neighbors. They are flawed and funny and desperate and loving and full of life… Strange Bird is unexpected in every moment while it asks some very important questions.” 

That’s music to Lewis’ ears.

“All of my plays ask big questions,” she said. “I don’t go in trying to give answers. I’m not an essayist. I’m a playwright. My plays are grappling with difficult questions, and I hope that the audience goes out still grappling.”