Last week, Years 10 and 11 Drama students attended Belvoir Street Theatre’s production of Grief is the Thing with Feathers, adapted from Max Porter’s acclaimed novel and directed by Simon Phillips. The play follows a father and his two young sons as they grapple with the devastating loss of their wife and mother. Their journey is shadowed and, in unexpected ways, guided by a surreal, shape-shifting figure: Crow, a mischievous yet strangely comforting manifestation of grief.
The monochromatic set, fractured lighting design, bursts of feathers and haunting live cello work combined to create an immersive and often confronting sensory world. As IGS student Alex O observed, the lighting became “both psychological landscape and visual metaphor,” shifting the space from an apartment to a forest, a street and a beach, while fractured light mirrored the family’s emotional collapse.
For IGS student Connor R, Crow’s “Gothic Mary Poppins” energy stood out, with Schmitz transforming seamlessly between the father’s emotional restraint and the crow’s physical sharpness, flicks of an imaginary beak, and bursts of chaotic humour. Connor reflected that the performance deepened his understanding of grief’s complexity, its ability to be both painful and absurd, and inspired his own preparation for an HSC monologue from the piece.
IGS Student Kai H was struck by the way transformational acting revealed Crow as both a chaotic presence and a guide, “never overly wise or considerate, but oddly comforting,” embodying the messy and contradictory nature of grief.
IGS Student Anna M brought a personal lens to her experience, connecting the play’s portrayal of loss to her own grieving process. She described Crow as representing “the stories we tell to deal with grief, how we invent ways to cope with the unthinkable and yet inevitable.” For Anna, the performance was a reminder that in the turbulence of loss, “there might be a crow on my shoulder too.”
Following the performance, students took part in an intimate Q&A with the cast and creatives. Advice from Schmitz, about embracing vulnerability, working with physicality, and allowing oneself to look “silly” in pursuit of truth, resonated strongly with the aspiring actors.
By engaging with this production, students not only experienced the power of professional theatre but also deepened their understanding of performance, design and the universal themes that connect art to life.