'Stupid F— Bird’ review: Chekhov’s imagination takes flight

Nina (Martha Brigham, left) and Con (Adam Magill) prepare for a performance of his play within the play in San Francisco Playhouse's "Stupid F--ing Bird" Nina (Martha Brigham, left) and Con (Adam Magill) prepare for a performance of his play within the play in San Francisco Playhouse's "Stupid F--ing Bird" Photo: Jessica Palopoli Photo: Jessica Palopoli Image 1 of / 7 Caption Close 'Stupid F— Bird’ review: Chekhov’s imagination takes flight 1 / 7 Back to Gallery

You need not be familiar with Chekhov’s “The Seagull” to enjoy Aaron Posner’s “Stupid F— Bird,” but the better you know the Russian classic, the more comedy and meaning you’ll derive from the play with an unprintable name that opened Saturday at San Francisco Playhouse.  Familiarity with “Hamlet” and various trends in theater and performance art helps, too (even Karen Finley’s chocolate-smeared nudity gets a shout-out). 

But Posner’s “Bird” — “sort of adapted,” as the program says, from “Seagull” — has a lot more going for it than inside-theater lore or even its snarky contemporary American update of Chekhov’s plot, themes and characters.  It’s basically the same story in a more anarchic vein — more overtly funny on many more levels, in its characterizations, formal invention, music and cultural commentary. 

Posner, a skilled comedy director (his Cal Shakes “Comedy of Errors” was one of the outstanding shows of 2014) and serious adapter of novels (Chaim Potok’s “The Chosen” and “My Name Is Asher Lev”), seasons his takes on Chekhovian realism with clever segues into fourth-wall-breaking monologues, digressions on the state of theater today, songs and even a little audience-interaction improv.  Playhouse director Susi Damilano and her actors smoothly integrate the disparate elements into a seamless self-referential whole. 

The action unfolds, as usual, at a country estate where Chekhov’s fading stage diva — now a stage and screen star named Emma (a regal, self-involved Carrie Paff) — has come home with her current younger lover, no longer the popular hack novelist Trigorin but now an apparent literary genius called Trig (an observant, sexy Johnny Moreno).  Emma’s angry-artist son, would-be disruptive playwright Con (a strikingly scruffy, sincere and confused Adam Magill) stages a manifesto-as-performance event, performed with delightfully ardent naivete by Martha Brigham as his lover, Nina. 

Emma is dismissive of Con’s work, but Trig takes a strong, reciprocated interest in Nina — leaving Con as lovesick as goth girl Mash has long been for him, and as sincere but dim local teacher Dev has always been for Mash.  A bitter, impatient El Beh, crooning wondrously dark songs to her own ukulele accompaniment (music by James Sugg), and Joe Estlack’s ever-patient, clueless but upbeat Dev are hilariously sort of made for each other.  A dreamy, gently supportive — of everybody — Charles Shaw Robinson provides the humane glue that seems to connect all these people, as Emma’s doctor brother (conflating two roles from “Seagull”). 

Everybody is unhappy, comically but also movingly, in Posner’s “Bird.”  Lovers, the cook, doctor, artists all unburden themselves in wondering, enticing asides and monologues.  Brigham and Moreno create real erotic heat as Nina and Trig discuss “Hamlet.”  Paff, who stops the show with a proud, delightful dying-hand-puppetry anecdote about Emma’s bad mothering, creates a complex angry-tender relationship with Magill. 

“Bird” never soars as high as “Seagull” can, but it’s a lot funnier, has a happier outcome and evokes a distinctly Chekhovian empathy.  Now let’s hope someone stages Posner’s follow-up update of “Uncle Vanya” — “Life Sucks.” 

Robert Hurwitt is The San Francisco Chronicle’s theater critic.  E-mail: rhurwitt@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @RobertHurwitt

Stupid F— Bird: Comedy.  By Aaron Posner.  Directed by Susi Damilano.  Through May 2.  $20-$120.  San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post St., S.F. Two hours, 20 minutes. ( 415) 677-9596.  www.sfplayhouse.org.