MOXIE’S ‘BIRDS’ A HIGH-FLYING SHOWCASE FOR SAN DIEGO ACTOR

Over the past 20-plus years of covering San Diego theater, I’ve followed the careers of several favorite local artists, who include actor Mike Sears and director Lisa Berger, his wife.

So when I heard Berger was directing Sears in Anna Ouyang Moench’s “Birds of North America” at Moxie Theatre, I looked forward to attending its opening on Friday. As always, they did not disappoint, and neither did Sears’ co-star Farah Dinga. But the play itself feels a little choppy, and it left me wanting to know more.

Moench has described “Birds” as a play about climate change, told through the story of an aging father, John, and his adult daughter, Caitlyn, who meet several times over a period of some 15 to 20 years to watch birds in John’s Baltimore backyard. Father and daughter monitor and record the gradual, global warming-related changes in the migration patterns and die-off of the city’s birds, bees and butterflies. But they’re blind to the slow-moving extinction of their relationship, which withers away due to callous insensitivity, cruel vocal jabs and the very human trait of failing to adapt despite clear warning signs.

Sears stars in the play as John, a rigid, opinionated, ultra-liberal idealist who enjoys birding with Caitlyn, but can’t resist making mean-spirited digs about her life choices, right-wing clients and her failure as a novelist, even though his life goal of creating a dengue fever vaccine has also foundered.

Sears is one of San Diego’s most natural, understated and in-the-moment actors, and this role gives him a big canvas to paint on. He doesn’t miss a brushstroke with his fully inhabited, authentic, warts-andall performance, and his final scene in the play is heartbreaking.

Dinga is also excellent as Caitlyn, who birds with John to maintain a connection, then grows to love the sport. Dinga sensitively portrays Caitlyn’s wounded reserve and crushing sadness over several personal and career failures, but Dinga’s Caitlyn can also dish back insults as well as her dad. And Dinga’s pain and hurt as Caitlyn is palpable when John’s needling finally, and irreversibly, strikes a bone.

Berger’s direction of “Red Bike” at Moxie Theatre in 2020 made it one of my favorite productions of that year. She has an out-of-thebox way of imagining fresh ways to tell theatrical stories like nobody else. “Birds” is a more straightforward script than “Red Bike,” with all the action taking place on a spare but evocative fall leaf-filled backyard set designed by Robin Sanford Roberts. But Berger creatively transmits the passage of time through subtle changes in the actors’ physicality and Danita Lee’s costumes, and she builds a powerful tension and momentum as the play reaches its gut-wrenching climax.

Joshua Heming’s lighting and the environmental bird songs by sound designer Matt Lescault-wood create a believable outdoor environment.

The play moves swiftly through its 90 minutes with unknown gaps of years in between its maybe one-toomany scenes. Moench — who writes and produces the mystery-filled Apple TV+ series “Severance” — is sparing with expository detail. But I wanted to know what drove the initial wedge between father and daughter and why Caitlyn feels driven to keep migrating home to the increasingly hostile environment of the family backyard.