THE CAGEBIRDS by David Campton

If Free Will exists, can we choose Captivity?

In THE CAGEBIRDS, David Campton combines realism with absurdity and comedy with stark darkness. We encounter six prisoners locked in a cage.

They are birds in a birdcage or six women, or birdlike women, or womanlike birds. Each with self-absorbed preoccupations of their own; coexisting within the same ecosystem and interacting with one another, yet too consumed by their own motivations, thoughts and worries to really listen to and understand one another. They each embody traits of people gathered in any modern environment; the vain Mirror-Eyed Gazer, the hypochondriacal Medicated Gloom, or the absurdly delicious reminiscences ofThe Great Guzzler.

The six birds seem to live happily together in their communal cage, each absorbed in their own petty interest, and placating The Mistress who holds the power and the keys. When this caretaker introduces a new member to the flock; a Wild One who soon causes turmoil, she shatters the others’ comfortable cage-dwelling existence and forces them to question the significance of their plight.

Though the CAGEBIRDS try to ignore The Wild One, her vitality is infectious but ultimately their fear and ignorance turn them against her and lead them to choose their comfortable shackles over a life in freedom outside the cage.

THE CAGEBIRDS by David Campton offers an insight into the darker side of human nature and what happens when a group’s existence is threatened. What constitutes the physical and mental confines of our existence? Is it simply that we are willing to like and accept life that way? And… if free will exists, does that mean we can choose the prison too.