Grief is the Thing with Feathers

Belvoir presents acclaimed New Zealand-Australian theatre director Simon Phillips’ new adaptation of Max Porter’s bestselling novel, Grief is the Thing With Feathers.

Co-adapted by Phillips, Nick Schlieper and Toby Schmitz, Grief is the Thing With Feathers is an imaginative and poetic take on how a family navigates loss, starring Schmitz (Netflix’s Boy Swallows Universe, The Dance of Death), alongside Philip Lynch (Never Closer), and Fraser Morrison (Disney’s The Last Days of the Space Age).

Two young boys full of energy and curiosity, try to make sense of their mother’s sudden death. Their father, with the soul of a poet, is struggling to find the words. Then Crow arrives—strange, loud, funny, and unsettling. Part babysitter, part nuisance, part unlikely guide. Crow, like a gothic Mary Poppins, brings chaos and comfort in equal measure. Is he real? Is he imagined? Did this odd bird come to a grieving family because they needed him? Or is he something they made?

Profoundly beautiful and poignant, this fresh reimagining of Porter’s exquisite prose poem is not to be missed.