showbusinessweekly.com: It may not be everybody’s idea of a good time, but you can’t say it’s like everything else you’ve seen. Charlie Victor Romeo is a live performance documentary derived entirely from the “Black Box” transcripts of six major real-life airline emergencies. Allowing the audience into the tension-filled cockpits of actual flights in distress, CVR is a portrait of the psychology of crisis and a testament to the ability to live to the last second.
3 comments:
After discussions of 8 the Play a few weeks back on the blog, I'd love to discuss the impact of the documentary theatre model on plays that are not explicitly stated to be presented as a "message play". Charlie Victor Romeo's subject matter is certainly dramatic, and depicts real life as only real life can be. However, I wonder how one can "design" on top of real life. In 8, it could be accepted that music would play, or that news segments would intercut the action because everything was being curated toward a goal of explaining the issue. I don't feel like you could take those same liberties in CVR without cheapening some of the effect of hearing the real words of dying pilots - maybe not invalidating, but certainly interpreting and curating in at least a fashion. Will these tell stunning stories and honor the dead? Probably. But how does the translation of real life into art affect the artifact of the event itself?
The first two shows on this article seem particularly interesting to me. The first because what the modern mindset is about planes and the cockpit is different than the mindset that existed about them 30 years ago. The original audience didn't live through 9/11, the landing in the hudson, and the various stories that have filtered through the internet of pilots who sleep and have little concern for passenger safety. It'd be interesting to see how a modern audience will react to how people acted in the cockpit in years prior. The second show described is interesting to me because I find the technological and generational split fascinating. Living on this college campus, it's so beneficial to be "linked in" to all the wireless capabilities around. I can check my e-mail on my phone if I don't have my computer with me, and I can communicate verbally and visually with my friends on my laptop. How do the people on campus who are older handle this? Do they "link in" as well? Are they as familiar with the technology? How about the ones who choose not to use this technology? A play that contrasts those who rely on this technology with those who refuse to touch it is truly a social commentary that many people need a wake up call to.
"Charlie Victory Romeo" sounds like one of these shows that actually make you want to think and reflect; which, an article argued a few weeks ago, is the primary function of art. By looking at the picture included with the article, it seems that the production is a very literal representation of the incidents, rather than a conceptual piece; I'd be very interested to watch the show and see how well they were able to portray the intensity of the crisis situations. It is definitely a very interesting concept.
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