Remember those gay penguins who fathered another bird's chick? And the heterosexual hawks who nested on the ledge of a brownstone? Marc Acito wrote a play about these two Manhattan miracles, which, in this New Conservatory Theatre Center production, registers as an exercise in stereotypes about long-term relationships, straight and gay.
Birds of a Feather might be better entertainment than director Tom Bruett's approach suggests. Then again, it might not. This diatribe on the universality of bickering couples wears its politics, such as they are, on its wing. Family Values humanizes two male Chinstrap penguins, Silo and Roy, until their penguinity is thoroughly eclipsed. The red-tailed hawks never get off the ground.
Bruett's stodgy staging is cramped by Dean Shibuya's literal-minded set. Stage right, the phony wall of snow. Stage left, the window ledge, which doubles as a screen for intermittent views of Central Park, the Zoo, and even the flaming World Trade Center. Yes, 9/11 gets dragged into an already cluttered chronology, even though it happened in 2001, after the penguins (1998), before the hawks (2002), and is irrelevant to the interpersonal goings-on.
Two dozen scenes and monologues follow one another without generating suspense or even expectation. Things simply happen, or don't, and throughout it all, characters keep up a steady barrage of verbiage uninflected by emotion, riddled with attitudes and accents. This isn't acting but the kind of narrative show-and-tell one associates with not-very-engaging children's theater. Who is its intended audience?
David Levine plays the fey penguin with some conviction, but why was he encouraged to make the hawk an unappealing brute from the Bronx? Spewing cliches about macho mating and hunting, Pale Male would benefit from some dignity or subtlety of delivery. His co-star Luke Taylor plays the butch penguin and lady hawk. Busy behaving like sitcom characters, the duo forget to embody the intimate relationships that alone might save this turkey.
The supporting cast of two provides welcome relief from the predictable back-and-forth of the leads. Maybe that's why they seem more adult. Elissa Beth Stebbins doubles as TV anchor Paula Zahn, inexplicably holding a curling iron instead of a microphone, and zookeeper Jane, a woman without a man. Christopher Morrell plays Mr. Paula Zahn and birdwatcher Joe, a guy without a life. They provide further variations on the theme of mating, as if we needed them.
Assimilationist, bland and conventional, Birds seems designed to promote tolerance through mediocrity. Not a bad strategy for a troupe somewhere in the middle of the country. But it's a bit mystifying why a queer theater in a queer-centric town like San Francisco would waste a coveted spot during the month of Pride on such a shallow, unchallenging amusement. Don't tell me there aren't more interesting plays out there.
Wed.-Sun. through June 29, NCTC, 25 Van Ness Ave., SF. Tickets ($25-$45): (415) 861-4914, www.nctcsf.org .