Review - Airline Highway

It's that Tony time of year, the time when I hope my wonderful Tony voter friends have an extra ticket in hand to see shows I've missed throughout the season.  For yesterday's matinee, my Tony voter boss took me to see Airline Highway, the new play by Lisa D'Amour at Manhattan Theatre Club's Broadway house.

I saw a previous play by D'Amour, Detroit, when it played at Steppenwolf Theatre in 2010, and I found it intriguing, but hard to wrap my brain around.  Airline Highway was easier to grasp, but that's because the playwright made it too easy, in my opinion.

In the vein of Lanford Wilson's Hot L Baltimore and Balm in Gilead, Airline Highway is a slice-of-life piece that deals with the lives of 'lovable losers' who live together in a ramshackle motel called the Hummingbird.  On the outskirts of New Orleans, the characters in the play are all examples of the class divide that exists in this country - they're all street smart, empathetic and relatively happy people who live in poverty on the fringe of society.  So we see the hooker with a heart of gold, the sassy transsexual, the naïve stripper and other various denizens of the hotel.  People who have no family or connections have made a family of their own at the Hummingbird Motel.

The action of the play starts when the characters are planning a funeral for their den mother, Miss Ruby, who is actually still alive (barely), but she wants to come to her own funeral so she can hear the kind things people say about her.  One of the participants turns out to be a former fellow motel denizen, Greg, who has escaped New Orleans as the boy toy of a 'cougar' who lives in Atlanta.  Greg shows up at Miss Ruby's funeral with his girlfriend's teenage daughter, who wants to write a paper on this 'subculture.'  Imagine how a privileged white girl using the word 'subculture' goes over with these people.  Greg's presence disturbs the lives of the rest of the Hummingbird clan who stayed behind.

I enjoyed Airline Highway, more so in the first act than in the second, for its very lived-in quality.  I felt like I was eavesdropping on many conversations and I enjoyed getting to know these people.  Though most of the characters were stereotypes and theatrical devices, they were also well-acted and interesting enough that I stayed engaged throughout.  The fantabulous Julie White was first among equals in the acting department and I found her middle-aged hooker to be the most poignant and fully realized character in the play.  One of her sadnesses I found particularly touching.
 

photo credit: Sara Krulwich

I wish that the script had had more poetry in it, like Wilson's work, to really elevate all of the dialogue.  I also wish that the playwright hadn't felt compelled to insert a coda so that we'd know what the play is about.  I really prefer figuring that out for myself.  In a rambling piece such as this, where you can pick and choose which character to listen to and follow during a lot of the overlapping dialogue, I think I'd rather find the meaning of everything in a more ambiguous way, by finding which character's truth I most believed.  And I kinda wish we hadn't seen Miss Ruby at the end of the play; although her monologue was well-written and well-performed, it again struck me as a 'this is what I want you to get from my play' and I chafed against that.  Of course, my changes make it my play instead of the playwright's, so I guess I could just shut up.

I loved Julie White, as I already said, but I also enjoyed K. Todd Freeman and, most especially, Scott Jaeck as Wayne, the manager of the motel.  I found him to be very touching and his monologue at the end of the first act was simply stunning.  I wish the second act had lived up to the wonderful ending of the first.  Ah well.  I am glad I saw Airline Highway (and from such excellent seats!  thanks, Tony voter boss!), and I do want to see what Lisa D'Amour brings us next.  She writes about people you don't normally see on stage - I just wish she'd let me do a little of the work myself next time...