A Red Orchid Theatre

What do we talk about when we talk about the weather? We talk about the planet’s slow boil: the seasons that change without our consent, the arrow of time that pierces our lives regardless of our armors. Medical researcher John and his adult daughter Caitlyn talk about the weather constantly in In Birds of North America; nearly every scene of Anna Ouyang Moench’s one-act play touches on the subject. Set in suburban Maryland and unfolding over a decade, the play tracks their relationship like an ornithologist watching the sky: full of hope, yet braced for disappointment. Species of bird appear late, vanish early or never arrive at all. Their altered patterns mirror a filial relationship that keeps missing its own landing, circling ground without touching down. Birds of North America | Photograph: Evan Hanover, Courtesy A Red Orchid Theatre The play opens at the dawn of the Iraq War—a moral backdrop that weighs heavily on John, a lifelong liberal, eco-warrior and former doctor who sacrificed professional success to pursue a cure for Dengue fever. He catalogs the world with scientific precision, logging birds in his red palm-sized notebook while flattening human emotion with the same rigor. (He speaks of Caitlyn’s miscarriage as casually as he might note a species count in decline.) Caitlyn, meanwhile, works as a copy editor for a right-wing news site, a compromise she frames as a temporary shelter from the torment of capitalism rather than a personal conviction. She dreams...