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The Birds
A contemporary adaptation of The Birds by an award-winning poet, published to tie in with a major production at the National Theatre directed by Kathryn Hunter
Pez and Eck are on the hunt for the perfect society in "a city where free men might live like birds". But when they start building the bird city for real, Pez starts to have ambitions - which seem not a million miles away from dictatorship. As the fantasy utopia threatens to turn into a tyranny the birds start to rebel. Sean O'Brien's new verse version brings Aristophanes' devastatingly ironic comment on human ambition bang up-to-date and is brimful of jokes ancient and modern.This adaptation by the winner of the Forward Prize for Poetry of Aristophanes' classic comedy is published to coincide with the National Theatre production and tour in 2002.
Pez and Eck are on the hunt for the perfect society in "a city where free men might live like birds". But when they start building the bird city for real, Pez starts to have ambitions - which seem not a million miles away from dictatorship. As the fantasy utopia threatens to turn into a tyranny the birds start to rebel. Sean O'Brien's new verse version brings Aristophanes' devastatingly ironic comment on human ambition bang up-to-date and is brimful of jokes ancient and modern.This adaptation by the winner of the Forward Prize for Poetry of Aristophanes' classic comedy is published to coincide with the National Theatre production and tour in 2002.
96 pages, Paperback
Published July 22, 2002
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About the author
Sean O'Brien
135 books17 followersSean O'Brien is a British poet, critic and playwright. Prizes he has won include the Eric Gregory Award (1979), the Somerset Maugham Award (1984), the Cholmondeley Award (1988), the Forward Poetry Prize (1995, 2001 and 2007) and the T. S. Eliot Prize (2007). He is one of only four poets (the others being Ted Hughes, John Burnside and Jason Allen-Paisant) to have won both the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Forward Poetry Prize for the same collection of poems (The Drowned Book).
Born in London, England, O'Brien grew up in Hull, and was educated at Hymers College and Selwyn College, Cambridge. He has lived since 1990 in Newcastle upon Tyne, where he teaches at the university. He was the Weidenfeld Visiting Professor at St. Anne's College, Oxford, for 2016–17.
Born in London, England, O'Brien grew up in Hull, and was educated at Hymers College and Selwyn College, Cambridge. He has lived since 1990 in Newcastle upon Tyne, where he teaches at the university. He was the Weidenfeld Visiting Professor at St. Anne's College, Oxford, for 2016–17.
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