Yesterday, after my lovely afternoon at the Lambs Club, I went back to my office to pass the time until I went to the evening performane of Charlie Victor Romeo at the 3LD Arts & Technology Center. The show is being produced by a co-worker pal, and I've heard about it enough over the years to check it out (it was originally produced in 1999 and won several awards).
I've never been to 3LD before. I thought the space was really interesting and seemed like the perfect venue for this piece. The futuristic white hallway really looked like an airplane jetway. I think they were presenting another piece about planes in another studio so maybe it's a theme at the space.
I'm generally a nervous flyer, so I admit to being apprehensive about seeing a play dealing with airplane disasters. But I also enjoy works that use existing text to construct a script. Knowing that Charlie Victor Romeo used the transcripts from the cockpit voice recordings told me there would be high drama, and I'm always up for high drama.
I'm glad I read through the program before the show started - I read a little about each of the incidents depicted in the play. For me, it was good to know how each incident turned out. I'm bad with too much suspense. So knowing the result allowed me to relax (as much as you can relax during this play) and just watch how the tragedies played out.
The physical production is excellent, with a wonderful sound design by Jamie Mereness, executed live in the back of the house by Kevin Reilly. On stage is a cramped cockpit with lots of realistic looking equipment, and above the stage is a screen that showed slides. Before each section, a slide showed the flight number, how many people were on board, and the problem that occurred. After the end of the section, the slide came back up and showed the number of fatalities. I thought this was a very non-sensational way to handle the outcomes. Moving, but still non-sensational.
Each piece has a different vibe and rhythm, even though they all dealt with a plane disaster. It was amazing how the actors found such human details in all the technical jargon from the transcripts. There was even a little humor. We saw a pilot flirt with a flight attendant, a male crew member distrust a female co-worker (sigh, will that particular dynamic ever leave society??), and other little details that kept the piece from becoming maudlin or manipulative. I was afraid the show would be overwhelmingly sad and tragic, but it wasn't. It was tense and unsettling, of course, knowing the outcome in advance, but ultimately, it showed real people working together in a real crisis, trying to find an answer and solve a problem. It was very human and theatrical at the same time.
The actors were all terrific, especially Patrick Daniels, who is also one of the creators of the show. (I borrowed the photo from the Charlie Victor Romeo Facebook page.) He played several different pilots and brought different shades to each one. All the actors were good, though, at playing different characters. This can't be an easy piece to do, with all the technical stuff to say, in so many different ways. They must be absolutely exhausted after, but post-performance, all the actors, and co-creator Bob Berger, conducted a Q & A. Most of the audience stayed, as did I, and it was really interesting. The creators talked about the process and what they wanted to do with the play, and the audience members asked really good questions that forced the actors and creators to really dig deep for their answers. I think the Q & A complemented the evening perfectly.
I give Charlie Victor Romeo a huge thumbs up - it's running for another week, so you should definitely check it out.
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