Eric M. Messner and Danny Gavigan in the Theater Alliance’s “Five Flights”

Written by DCist contributor Andrej Krasnansky

Adam Bock’s Five Flights centers around an unlikely plight – what to do with a dilapidated aviary. But when a father believes his wife’s soul lived in that bird’s home, the stakes for the aviary’s fate get a little bit higher.

Theater Alliance’s set evokes the aviary with a nestlike web of branches and broken windows – the structure was built by the main characters’ father when their mother passed away. Ed (Eric M. Messner) is one of the surviving sons, and he explains the significance of the structure. Each of the characters has a different view on what should be done with it, and much of the play centers around the debate.

Bock appears to be asking a bigger question on how individuals cope with lost love. There are moments of beauty in his writing, like when Tom passionately explains how hockey is like ballet or when Ed tells the audience more about his sister-in-law, granting more depth to the initially flat character in the process. But something is out of balance here, and great speeches, honed dialogue, and quirky characterization can’t quite compensate for it.