OnStage Colorado: The immigrant experience told through movement in ‘The Bluebird’
By Alex Miller|Mar 26, 2024
Buba Basishvili’s pantomime one hander trades words for movement in a deeply impactful performance
Sometimes — no, make that pretty much all the time — it’s impossible to define or understand how people feel about immigrants. “The other.”
In the U.S., which was built by immigrants, newcomers to our country are routinely denigrated, insulted, marginalized and even declared sub-human. Lost in the rhetoric and vitriol is the undeniable good that most newcomers to the country bring — from fresh-thinking and energetic scientists, entrepreneurs and artists all the way to needed cheap labor in the ag and industrial sectors.
Buba Basishvili is a theatre artist from Georgia who’s lived through Russia invading his home and a million other challenges on the road to his own American experience. For him, there was only one way to explore his own journey and that of so many others: with motion.
Using Charles Bukowski’s devastating poem “Bluebird” about repressed emotion (and plenty more) as his touchstone, Buba takes the audience on a journey, an immigrant’s journey. It starts with a “Hatching,” where a “protagonist” emerges from a suitcase through a series of challenging contortions that kick off the show with a nice bit of levity.
He sees a bird and is inspired by its beauty; he recreates it with a piece of paper and it serves as his inspiration for the dreams that will get him through what’s ahead.
(Tip: Be sure to get to the theatre in time to get a drink at the Savoy’s well-appointed bar and to read the program notes, which include the poem as well as a series of scene descriptions that detail the immigrant’s journey. This will give you a better understanding of what each scene is about.)
With only one main prop — a multifunctional suitcase — the barefoot Buba convincingly mimes us through his entire odyssey, and indeed, words would be superfluous.
The ensuing scenes are familiar to us all: violence compels the protagonist to leave his home, the journey is rough — almost fatal — and the arrival in a strange land is accompanied by a host of challenges, indignities, confusion. Earning a living seems nearly impossible; helping hands are few.
Accompanies by a variety of clever, artful projections by Meghan Frank and highly complementary music by Homospouses, part of the appeal is guessing what all of the movements and gestures mean. Oftentimes it’s quite clear, while at others the complexity of what Buba is trying to convey can be tough to follow (again, read those notes!).
For those unused to pantomime theatre, be prepared for a challenging show that compels you to pay very close attention with no words to help you out. A skilled practitioner of physical theatre, Buba is amazing to watch as he moves, runs, jumps and dances with noiseless grace. His sweet, innocent face is the perfect canvas for a myriad facial expressions that put the color into what the rest of his body is doing as the world he’s moving through tirelessly works to hold him down.
The only words we hear are from a recording by Tom O’Bedlam of Bukowski’s poem toward the end. I’d guess Buba wrestled with whether to add this or not, but ultimately it was the right decision. We needed to hear the words describing that thing inside us that’s struggling to get out, but which we hold back:
There’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out
But I’m too tough for him,
I say,
Stay down, do you want to mess me up?
You want to screw up the works?
On the news, when I see the impassive faces of those wading the Rio Grande only to be faced by hate and rejection, I wonder what they’re thinking. After so many miles, so much pain and hardship, to be seen as criminals, interlopers … they can’t let their bluebird out either. With The Bluebird, Buba Basishvili has created a timeless piece that does an incredible job describing what that feels like. It ain’t often pretty, but it does come with a glimmer of hope — and maybe that’s all we can ask sometimes.