Wed 5/7-Sat 5/17
While devoted theatergoers love a well-done production of Shakespeare, Moliere, or Shaw, the Cleveland Play House’s annual New Ground Theatre Festival lets them take the temperature of contemporary theater — to see what issues and what forms of presentation are engaging today’s playwrights.
The festival includes 25 performances of five plays, including the CPH’s current production, the world premiere of Deborah Zoe Laufer’s Informed Consent.
There will also be staged readings of Elizabeth A. Davis’ Joe, Clevelander Eric Coble’s Fairfield, and Heidi Schreck’s Grand Concourse.
Rounding out the festival is the fully staged production of George Brant’s Grounded. Brant, who is based in Cleveland thanks to his wife Laura Kepley’s recent appointment as Cleveland Playhouse artistic director. And while Grounded is a new work, first produced last year, it’s already had multiple productions (in Tucson, San Francisco, London and Edinburgh), including four prior to its New York debut in January. That’s the reverse of how things usually work.
The one-woman play goes inside the mind of a military fighter pilot who operates drones half a world away from her station in Las Vegas, going home at night to her husband and young daughter. It explores the conflict and moral dilemmas her situation creates.
Brant thinks the topicality of the subject is a key reason for such widespread interest in the work.
“We definitely are in a place where it seems like drones are in the news quite frequently,” he says. “I read an article about how President Obama used drones three times as much in his first three months as Bush had in eight years. I thought, they are really becoming prevalent. That pushed me to learn more about them. When I learned more about the pilots, that’s when I started to get more interested. I assumed planes were being flown from countries they were stationed in, but when I learned they were flown from 8000 miles away that piqued my interest. The fact that these pilots live in the suburbs of Las Vegas, drive 45 minutes or an hour through the desert to go to a place to [fly drones to] get to another desert emphasized the unrealness of it. It seems a lot to ask of the psyche to make that transition.”
He adds that the fact that it’s a one-woman play probably adds to the appeal of the work, making it friendly to theaters’ bottom lines. Hannah Cabell, who played the role in New York, auditioning a week after she gave birth, will handle the Cleveland production as well. It wasn’t his intention to make the work cost-effective though.
“I kind of stumbled on that [making it a one-woman play],” says Brant. “I didn’t see it as a one-person play from the start. But when I pictured scenes from the play with multiple characters, my storytelling mind was not coming up with great scenes, and I wasn’t sure who the other characters would be. When I started to think of it as one person, it opened doors. The control over time and place that gave me made a big difference in a play that is about time and place being distorted. To have a character who can take us anywhere any time so quickly seems very important.”
Brant’s play doesn’t take a hard-line stance on drones, pro or con, but explores the inherent moral dilemma in their use — and the impact of that dilemma on those involved.
“I think the play has many entry points,” he says. “There are parts that might strike a chord if you’re a mother, if you’re in the military, if you have thoughts on drones, if you’ve struggled to find work and family balance. The use of drones raises a lot of questions, and it’s interesting to hear from people to see where the fall. On one hand they save American lives; pilots aren’t risking their lives in combat. But you worry that we’re creating more enemies by using these. And there’s a question about we need to be careful as far as setting the moral tone as to how these weapons are used. The technology isn’t that expensive so we have to be careful how we set the precedent. If we’re saying it’s OK to cross the borders of countries and use these weapons, the same logic can be used against us.”
Brant says he’s excited to be bringing the play to Cleveland, showing his new hometown what he’s about.
“This is where I’m living, and it’s a strange feeling when people ask what you have going on in the theater and a lot of times you’re naming places where the play is going up but nobody can see it,” he says. “It’s fabulous to be able to share this with everyone. I was grateful to receive one of the feedback fellowships this year.”
Tickets to New Ground Theatre Festival productions range from $10-$72. More information and a full schedule can be found here.
clevelandplayhouse.com/new-ground-theatre-festival