Who knew a unique tale about a puzzle loving couple and a foul mouthed exotic parrot would not only be mischievously funny but also tug at the heartstrings?

Get to know Featherbaby.

 With lively direction by Weylin Symes, Greater Boston Stage Company continues the co-world premiere of David Templeton’s comedy, Featherbaby live and in person at Greater Boston Stage Company in Stoneham, Massachusetts through Sunday, September 28.  This amusing production contains some explicit language and runs approximately one hour and 40 minutes with one intermission.  Click here for more information and for tickets.

It was easy for me to see the appeal of Featherbaby, especially since my first pet was a parakeet and we shared an unbreakable bond.  While my parakeet lived for 10 years, a yellow naped Amazon parrot like Featherbaby lives 20 to 30 years in the wild and up to 80 years in Angie’s cozy apartment living off what Melendy’s Featherbaby refers to as treats or “num-nums.”  It also shows a parrot can enjoy a rich and extended life with love and many adventures that may exceed the parrot’s owner given the parrot’s long life expectancy.

Set designer Katy Monthei cleverly depicts Featherbaby’s two kingdoms dividing the stage between Angie’s furnished apartment including a colorful carpet and the greenery of the Amazon Rainforest with Featherbaby’s perch center stage as a hot pink wicker throne.  Puzzle pieces and images of pop culture references are subtly scattered on this richly detailed set’s surface illuminated by Matt Cost’s cheerful and multicolored neon lit imagery. Mackenzie Adamick’s pop and rock-inspired sound design lends to some of this comedy’s most hilarious moments.

I did not know much about the story going into this comedy and found myself enjoying its significant twists and turns as they unfolded and I’m sure you will too.  Liv Dumaine offers a certain mysterious air as Featherbaby’s puzzle-loving intellectual and somewhat flighty pet parent, Angie.  Coy and curious, Angie shares some sweetly scholarly chemistry with Gabriel Graetz as level headed and inquisitive yet sensitive Mason and is a doting pet parent to Paul Melendy as vain and attention-craving Featherbaby.  However, Featherbaby and Mason have a more adversarial relationship and it is quite the sight to see.

Symes seems to leave plenty of room for improvisation as Paul Melendy as Featherbaby impressively spreads his wings.  Plumes “burst” in Melendy’s textured and shiny suit coat enhanced by a vibrant yellow silk shirt and tie and an orange feather creatively designed by Deirdre Gerrard.  Melendy has a gift for facial features and exacting this bird’s mannerisms is believable and wonderfully comical.  In a role that could be anticipated as over the top or grating, Melendy is intense and vocal, but also offers a nuanced performance which includes precise mannerisms of this complicated and intense parrot through exacting darting eyes, head bobbing, weaving, pacing, swaying, veiled aggression and in the gentle lean for a head rub.  Seemingly part stand up, improvisation and storyteller, narrator Melendy proves engaging, charming, charismatic and endearing as Featherbaby while occasionally being more than a bit naughty sharing Featherbaby’s history, insecurities and an unexpected new journey.

As much as this quirky comedy is funny and lighthearted, it also boasts its share of stirring moments among this trio who all share appealing chemistry.  You’ll laugh and at times be unexpectedly moved.  In a life divided between the feathered and the unfeathered in Featherbaby’s terms, Featherbaby delivers a few profound life lessons along the way which is quite a feat coming from a bird.

Greater Boston Stage Company continues the co-world premiere of David Templeton’s comedy, Featherbaby live and in person at Greater Boston Stage Company in Stoneham, Massachusetts through Sunday, September 28.  Click here for more information and for tickets.