#1
Posted: 11/22/06 at 4:27am
The New York Times is mixed-negative:
“The American Pilot,” a new play by David Greig that opened last night at City Center, turns on an incident that is unsettling in its gruesome familiarity. The title character has survived the crash of his plane in the hills of an unnamed country riven by civil war. Injured and unable to walk, he is saved by a farmer who shelters him in a barn. His fate — death or ransom — will be decided by the leader of a rebel faction who rules the territory and is fighting a regime supported by the United States. At one point a video camera is brought out to record the pilot’s planned execution.
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Extending the same strict measure of sympathy to most of his characters, Mr. Greig intends to reveal the dehumanizing influence of civil and global strife on all the little people caught up in it. But at just 90 minutes (there is also an intermission), the play is too schematic to do justice to the rangy moral territory it purports to explore.
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As his fate is being debated, the soldier, who speaks nary a word of the local language, suffers and fumes, and barks threats of retribution every time he is approached. Stolidly played by Aaron Staton, this character is not granted the depth of feeling that Mr. Greig is so careful to ascribe to most of the play’s characters, even the men contemplating his execution. (Only the pilot does not address a defining monologue directly to the audience.) Absurdly, he often seems more concerned about the peril his iPod faces than his own.
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Given the dispiriting situation in Iraq, clearly Mr. Greig’s inspiration, I’m not in a mood to argue that point. But “The American Pilot” reduces an intricate network of issues into a murky soup of verbiage spoken by characters who never lose the aspect of symbols. Straining for the universal and the topical too, Mr. Greig grasps only the generic.
And a generic play about an American soldier held captive and possibly primed for execution can hardly be expected to rivet our attention — or perhaps even escape our dismay — when real soldiers (and real civilians) are mired in predicaments of a similar kind on the other side of the globe, day after brutal, bruising day.
The New York Times Review - THE AMERICAN PILOT
“The American Pilot,” a new play by David Greig that opened last night at City Center, turns on an incident that is unsettling in its gruesome familiarity. The title character has survived the crash of his plane in the hills of an unnamed country riven by civil war. Injured and unable to walk, he is saved by a farmer who shelters him in a barn. His fate — death or ransom — will be decided by the leader of a rebel faction who rules the territory and is fighting a regime supported by the United States. At one point a video camera is brought out to record the pilot’s planned execution.
_______________________________________________________
Extending the same strict measure of sympathy to most of his characters, Mr. Greig intends to reveal the dehumanizing influence of civil and global strife on all the little people caught up in it. But at just 90 minutes (there is also an intermission), the play is too schematic to do justice to the rangy moral territory it purports to explore.
_______________________________________________________
As his fate is being debated, the soldier, who speaks nary a word of the local language, suffers and fumes, and barks threats of retribution every time he is approached. Stolidly played by Aaron Staton, this character is not granted the depth of feeling that Mr. Greig is so careful to ascribe to most of the play’s characters, even the men contemplating his execution. (Only the pilot does not address a defining monologue directly to the audience.) Absurdly, he often seems more concerned about the peril his iPod faces than his own.
_______________________________________________________
Given the dispiriting situation in Iraq, clearly Mr. Greig’s inspiration, I’m not in a mood to argue that point. But “The American Pilot” reduces an intricate network of issues into a murky soup of verbiage spoken by characters who never lose the aspect of symbols. Straining for the universal and the topical too, Mr. Greig grasps only the generic.
And a generic play about an American soldier held captive and possibly primed for execution can hardly be expected to rivet our attention — or perhaps even escape our dismay — when real soldiers (and real civilians) are mired in predicaments of a similar kind on the other side of the globe, day after brutal, bruising day.
The New York Times Review - THE AMERICAN PILOT
"Winning a Tony this year is like winning Best Attendance in third grade: no one will care but the winner and their mom."
-Kad
"I have also met him in person, and I find him to be quite funny actually. Arrogant and often misinformed, but still funny."
-bjh2114 (on Michael Riedel)
-Kad
"I have also met him in person, and I find him to be quite funny actually. Arrogant and often misinformed, but still funny."
-bjh2114 (on Michael Riedel)
Updated On: 11/22/06 at 04:27 AM
