C V R (Charlie Victor Romeo) at PS 122

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 6/6/04 at 12:45am

I saw this tonight (thanks to an email from PS122 offering $10 early preview tickets for this weekend -- tix are regularly $30, by the way). Wow. I missed the earlier soldout eight month run of this award-winning production a few years ago, but I'm glad I caught it tonight. One of the most disturbing and unsettling theatrical events I can recall. It's a real nail-biter -- six major airline emergencies from the 80's and 90's are re-enacted (from the point of view of the pilots, engineers, et al in the cockpit) by a cast of six using transcripts taken from the planes' blackboxes (cockpit voice recorders -- another meaning of "CVR"). Apparently "CVR" has been presented all over the country and a video of it is now used as a training tool in the airline industry.

It is remarkably intense experience (you can actually see the beads of sweat poring off of the actors at some points) that will quicken your pulse and grab you on an emotional and physical level unlike anything I've ever seen -- it's impossible not to be deeply affected by this production (I felt like I needed a cigarette, a drink and a massage afterwards -- I'm still looking for the massage, by the way....). This is the very definition of "Unique Theatrical Experience" (which it won from the Drama Desk in 2000) and it makes for a thoroughly engrossing and breathtaking hour and forty minutes of theatre.
CVR at PS 122