Holiday Auto-Post: Review Flashback to 2006

Hi again, everybody!  I'm currently home, (hopefully) enjoying some quality time with the family.  Here we're flashing back to 2006, to a play I still think about every now and then...

12/21/06:  I unexpectedly saw a new play, The American Pilot, at the Manhattan Theatre Club smaller space last night.  I had a vague notion that it didn’t really get very good reviews and it has practically no buzz, so I didn’t know what to expect.  I just wanted to see a new play and a free ticket fell into my lap.

In brief, I was very impressed with The American Pilot.  It’s lean at 95 minutes, including a ten-minute intermission, but it packs a lot in it.  It concerns, yes, an American pilot, who is discovered in an unnamed Middle Eastern-type country that is at war.  He is hidden in a simple farmer’s barn and much of the action centers around what is to be done with him.  The characters are all referred to as The Farmer, The Captain, The Daughter, etc., and they each (except for the American Pilot) have a monologue that describes their feelings about the situation AROUND the pilot, plus each of their monologues reveals a smidgeon of detail of what will happen further down the road in the play.  I found it very well written, with smart, pointed dialogue that wasn’t pretentious or smug in the least.  Even the simple, uneducated characters had a bright-type of common sense that was totally in keeping with the subject matter of the play.  Each character was treated as a type, naturally (this is an anti-war play, after all), but was still an individual.  The ramifications of their actions were examined, discussed and felt.  I thought it was quite well done.  There was the requisite study of how Americans tromp around the world thinking everything belongs to them, but there was also careful consideration of how America can help countries that find it hard to help themselves.  The play was one of the most balanced, yet articulate pieces of war drama I’ve seen in awhile.  Having recently been rather bludgeoned over the head by a couple of plays, it was nice to be treated as an intelligent person who could reason out things for herself.

photo credit: Carol Rosegg

The actors were all excellent.  It’s one of the best companies of actors I’ve seen Off-Broadway in a long time.  I don’t really know any of them (the guy playing The Farmer was in No Foreigners Beyond This Point (which I loved) last season, but he made much more of an impression here), but I’m going to keep an eye out for them.  As well as the playwright, David Greig, who works at the National Theater of Scotland, I believe.  But I really enjoyed the show and give it an unexpected thumbs way up.  Smart, political plays like this one are truly few and far between.