The Fourth Walsh

A Red Orchid Theatre remounts last year’s fan favorite BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA for a limited four week engagement.

John is a birder. He searches, observes, identifies, and logs seeing different types of birds. What began as a casual hobby has become his life’s work. When his daughter Caitlyn arrives to hang out in the backyard, her dad’s singular focus for tracking and recording feathered visitors intrigues her. While he’s a passionate birdwatcher, her life appears lackluster. Caitlyn’s job, boyfriend, and life tend to be more happenstance than intentional pursuit. Over the years, dad and daughter fall into a shared birdwatching routine. Their fowl activity brings them closer while ruffling feathers, as each pushes the other to want more from life.    

Playwright Anna Ouyang Moench beautifully tells the relational struggle of a father and daughter from 2014-2025. He’s a curmudgeon sitting on his backyard perch observing. She’s out in the real world floundering. They both see a better way to live… for the other. Moench’s bittersweet story is thought-provoking. Her dialogue is crisp with humor and heart. It is also riddled with gaffes. Moench keeps it authentic as her characters say the wrong thing at the wrong time only to realize and regret it in real time. In a particularly memorable scene, John Judd (John) blunders over a voice mail.

Director Kirsten Fitzgerald masterfully orchestrates two lives tangled together and divided apart as family. The stalwart Judd and vulnerable Cassidy Slaughter Mason (Caitlyn) become dad and daughter onstage. They have inside jokes. They know each other’s past mistakes. And they both are working -although often awkwardly- at having a grownup relationship.  At times, Fitzgerald has Judd and Mason deliver their lines facing out to the audience behind binoculars instead of directly to each other. The effect is profound. As the watchers of the birdwatchers, we come face to face with the slightest emotion to the words being said… a tear trickle, a slight smile, shoulders slumping. We are sharing in the angst and imperfection of each interaction. And nod out to Designer Morgan Laszlo for their homespun porch and backyard. It aids in keeping scene transitions seamless as Judd and Mason move from inside to out while discarding/putting on clothing to show the passage of time.

I missed last year’s production that garnered seven 2026 Equity Jeff Award nominations including best play. (Honors to be awarded on Monday, September 14.) I’m so glad I had a second chance to see the remount of BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA once again featuring Judd and Mason. The duo captivate in navigating the messiness of a parent-adult child relationship.       

Running Time: 90-minute show with no intermission

A Red Orchid Theatre, 1531 N. Wells Street

Written by Anna Ouyang Moench

Directed by Kirsten Fitzgerald

Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays at 7pm

Saturdays and Sundays at 3pm

Thru October 4

For more information or tickets

Production photos by Evan Hanover

For more Chicago theatre information and reviews, please visit Theatre in Chicago