A musical comedy, a farmyard fable, Chickens is being played out for all its whimsical worth on United Players’ stage. Lucia Frangione’s early play tells the story of Pal Grandfield, a farmer so plagued by years of increasing debt that in a fit of despair he buys a beautiful bantam hen at the local auction. And then a rooster. Another rooster is added to the flock, followed by volunteer ‘jailbird,’ Stewer, escaped from a battery farm. How these birds, the beautiful layer Butter Ball (Cassie Unger), His Nibs, insecure and ineffectual (David Johnston), Alphonso, a strutting cock of the walk (Dustin Freeland) and Stewer (Aunya Jayde) - learn to live together and avoid the ultimate fall of the axe is half the plot.

Meanwhile, Pal (Joel Garner) and Lisa (Jennifer Suratos) need to save the family farm and their marriage. Lisa is all heart and optimism. Also a realist. Like Stewer who delivers the awful truths of chicken slaughter to the chicken yard, Lisa delivers an ultimatum: the bantams will be eaten if they do not win prizes at the County Fair. Also up for the chop is the farm itself and Pal’s self-esteem. Will he take a loan from Lisa’s brother? Must the farm be sold?

There are moments of quiet beauty. It is impossible not to be carried away by Nibs’s ballad of a dream of flight and Lisa’s on loneliness. Equally there are moments of hilarious weirdness. The “Ode to Joy” as sung by a chicken quartet, anyone?

Effervescent music from the band and energetic direction from Christopher King swept the play along. The dancing was as exuberant as the enthusiastic plunge into chicken-ness. With arms mostly tucked up, heads and necks bobbed and turned and pecked, legs strutted and scratched. Tails were flaunted and scarlet combs were worn with pride, thanks to clever costuming by Rosie Aiken.

The set by Emily Dotson and lighting by Brad Trenaman and Jamie Sweeney evoked the old barns and farmhouses in a countryside of nostalgic memory.

Beguiling and bizarre, this is a light-hearted farce, stuffed full with warmth and, dare I say it, heart and pluck.

2024 Elizabeth Paterson