{"id":39297,"date":"2024-02-15T19:35:16","date_gmt":"2024-02-16T01:35:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lafeber.com\/pet-birds\/?p=39297"},"modified":"2025-11-06T12:14:40","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T18:14:40","slug":"the-story-of-dr-pepperberg-alex-the-african-grey-turned-into-a-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lafeber.com\/pet-birds\/the-story-of-dr-pepperberg-alex-the-african-grey-turned-into-a-play\/","title":{"rendered":"The Story Of Dr. Pepperberg And Alex The African Grey Turned Into A Play!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"African
Alex circa 2005. Courtesy of Dr. Irene Pepperberg<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A play, called Beyond Words<\/em>, will have its premiere in Cambridge, MA, in the middle of March. It is roughly based on the book, \u201cAlex & Me\u201d\u2014thus it is a light fictionalization of my time with Alex. Many people have asked how I feel about the prospect of seeing myself and a person playing Alex on stage. It is<\/em> a wee bit weird\u2014but I\u2019ve OK\u2019ed the version that will be produced; I was also present for a \u2018read through\u2019 (no props, no costumes, no stage sets) in New York City two years ago\u2014and the simple answer is that it wouldn\u2019t have happened if I hadn\u2019t completely trusted the playwright, Laura Censabella.<\/p>\n

Alex & Me\u2014New York Times <\/em>Best-Seller<\/h3>\n

A bit of background\u2026after the trauma of Alex\u2019s death and the unrelenting media blitz, I immediately\u2014and without fully thinking about what I was doing\u2014agreed to begin working on a manuscript about a relationship I was only beginning to understand. By the time \u201cAlex & Me\u201d was completed, I was pretty much wrung out. Of course, it was absolutely thrilling to have a New York Times <\/em>best-seller, but the emotional toll of the book tour and the need to figure out how to keep the lab going was almost more than I could handle.<\/p>\n

In the ensuing years, I was approached several times by various people wanting permission to write a screenplay, and I couldn\u2019t imagine acquiescing: I learned enough about the process to understand that no matter what agreements were signed, I would have little control over the final product, and that the goal was to make money for those who were funding the project\u2014not to preserve Alex\u2019s and my legacy or to remain true to our story. [Absolutely no offense intended to anyone involved\u2026that\u2019s just the way the world works.]<\/p>\n

A Pitch For A Play<\/h3>\n

A number of years later, however, I was approached by Laura Censabella, who wanted to write a play<\/em>\u2014for the first time, I was intrigued. As a high school student in Queens, I grew up spending many weekends traveling to Manhattan to watch shows on Broadway\u2014for example, amazing productions like Richard Burton\u2019s Hamlet<\/em>. I completely fell in love with theater; I knew how a live performance allows for stretches of imagination that can accomplish things impossible on screen.<\/p>\n

Still, I was a bit hesitant\u2014could this really<\/em> work? Laura understood my concerns and invited me to watch her play Paradise<\/em>\u2014there she deftly wove together threads of science and diverse cultures. Her characters navigated very different sets of circumstances than mine, but they did so in ways in which their humanity was paramount, even when they made what the viewer might think were poor choices.<\/p>\n

The play made me realize that she was the one person whom I could trust to portray my own chaotic life and the complicated, nuanced relationship I had with Alex. I was also thrilled with her plan that a person would play Alex. Although I had always been exceeding careful never to think of him nor ever to treat him as a \u201cfeathered human,\u201d I realized that by having a human assume his persona, one might thereby have a glimmer of how Alex might<\/em> have responded had he had the ability to fully express himself in the ways that humans do.<\/p>\n

The Collaboration<\/h3>\n

Laura and I spent a lot of time discussing how to proceed. I had to accept that, on occasion, certain aspects of my life had to be exaggerated to provide a dramatic arc (for example, although I have had far more than my share of \u201cme, too\u201d experiences, I was never physically<\/em> accosted as occurs in a scene in the play). I also knew that a 2-hour play could only touch on the highlights of Alex\u2019s and my years together, and Laura and I agreed that we would make it absolutely clear that the play was only \u2018based on\u2019 \u201cAlex & Me\u201d: Viewers had to understand that that the play would not\u2014and could not\u2014be a literal depiction of my life with Alex, but that it would be as honest a representation as possible AND that the science parts would be absolutely<\/em> correct.<\/p>\n

Laura and I also completely agreed that Alex had to be a central character and that not only his intelligence but also his personality showed through\u2026.what, at least in humans, would be considered a kind of wit and even his occasional \u2018snarkiness\u2019 had to be clearly depicted. When I saw the first version of the play that Laura was willing to share, I was thrilled\u2026Alex came completely alive! I also must note that I wish that I had actually said some of the lines used by my character\u2014Laura expressed my emotions and meaning better than I actually did in real life!<\/p>\n

So, yes, it is a kind of \u2018meta\u2019 experience to see actors depict close approximations of oneself and of the important people in one\u2019s life\u2026and, for example, to see a particular character represent a distillation of many folks rather than a specific individual\u2026but I think the end product is worth any discomfort I might experience.<\/p>\n

As I write in the program notes: \u00a0\u201cIn sum, my hope is that the play enables viewers to value and understand Alex\u2019s legacy fully and to recognize the importance of the work we did together: to appreciate the intelligence of the other beings with whom we share the planet, to conserve endangered species like Grey parrots, to recognize that the techniques that enabled me to teach him can be adapted for use with humans with communicative disabilities, to understand that misogyny still needs to be addressed, and most of all, to be open to the possibility that paradigm shifts and what might initially seem like outrageous ideas can further our knowledge in amazing ways.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In her latest blog, Dr. Irene Pepperberg reflects on the upcoming play “Beyond Words,” which dramatizes her remarkable 30-year research relationship with Alex, the infamous African grey parrot who took the world of animal behavior research by storm. Dr. Pepperberg shares how, despite collaborating on early drafts, witnessing such intimate bonds fictionalized before audiences holds surreal emotional weight. As actors emulate private breakthrough moments in her and Alex\u2019s time working together, she talks about feelings of profound vulnerability, yet revels in Alex\u2019s captivating global recognition through art’s lens. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":35344,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,171],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-behavior","category-everyday","bird-type-african-grey"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Story Of Dr. Pepperberg And Alex The African Grey Turned Into A Play! – Pet Birds by Lafeber Co.<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In her latest blog, Dr. Irene Pepperberg reflects on the upcoming play "Beyond Words," which dramatizes her remarkable 30-year research relationship with Alex, the infamous African grey parrot who took the world of animal behavior research by storm. 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You can help Dr. Pepperberg continue the groundbreaking parrot research she began more than 30 years ago with Alex, the African grey parrot who won admirers from around the world with his cognitive abilities. If you shop online through sites such as Amazon.com, you can designate the Alex Foundation to receive a percentage of your final sales, or register with the Alex Foundation at iGive.com and a percentage of sales from companies associated with iGive will go to the foundation. The Alex Foundation also has a \u201cDonate\u201d button linked to PayPal. Visit\u00a0The Alex Foundation\u00a0and click on the \u201cSupport Us\u201d link for more information. Read more about the lab at The Alex Foundation Facebook page and at The Alex Foundation Twitter account.","url":"https:\/\/lafeber.com\/pet-birds\/author\/irene\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lafeber.com\/pet-birds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lafeber.com\/pet-birds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lafeber.com\/pet-birds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lafeber.com\/pet-birds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lafeber.com\/pet-birds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39297"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/lafeber.com\/pet-birds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45917,"href":"https:\/\/lafeber.com\/pet-birds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39297\/revisions\/45917"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lafeber.com\/pet-birds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lafeber.com\/pet-birds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lafeber.com\/pet-birds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lafeber.com\/pet-birds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}