Jane Anderson's deeply felt, delightfully imaginative play about the 1986 Challenger tragedy was on the Rubicon Theatre Company's schedule long before the Challenger's sister space shuttle Columbia disintegrated upon re-entry earlier this year. But with that disaster fresh in our minds, and the wounds of 9/11 still wide open, this 1991 drama feels astonishingly fresh and pertinent. Its timeless themes of coping with--and moving beyond--tragedy are conveyed through a mix of solid craftsmanship, seriousness of purpose, and dazzling theatricality.
Anderson's first play (she would go on to write The Baby Dance and Normal) is a nonlinear work, a formula that helps her avoid docudrama cliches in favor of exploring larger ideas. The first character we meet, surprisingly enough, is painter Claude Monet, who tells us a bit about light and perspective. We then observe the Teacher (a character clearly based on educator and amateur astronaut Christa McAuliffe but never identified as such) as she shows her students a Monet painting of a cathedral and describes the architects' attempts to defy gravity through the use of flying buttresses. These motifs of reaching higher and seeing ever more clearly keep reappearing in various guises, reminding us of the intrinsic value of exploration, be it artistic or scientific.
The emotional core of the work, however, is the story of the Teacher's 5-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, played to near-perfection by Precious Chong. Anderson never has her describe the pain of losing her mother; the implication of such a loss is simply too much for a young girl to comprehend. The playwright instead approaches the tragedy from various oblique angles. Elizabeth relates a harrowing story of getting lost in a supermarket and another about the day her dog was hit by a car. Our knowledge of the central tragedy makes these memories that much more moving and the ultimate catharsis that much more thrilling.
Jenny Sullivan, who directed the work's world premiere at the Williamstown Theatre Festival 12 years ago, is once again at the helm, and it's hard to imagine a better pilot for the production. Under her guidance, a superb cast deftly handles the play's many shifts in tone, which take us from whimsy to despair to exhilaration. Stephanie Zimbalist portrays the Teacher not as some sort of superhero but as a steady, patient presence in the classroom who can't believe her good fortune to be chosen for this flight. As Monet, Harold Gould embodies the ease and matter-of- fact self-confidence that comes with genius. Also superb are Jeff Kober as a ground-crew worker who, like so many others, blames himself for the tragedy; Pamela Shaddock as the cocktail waitress who comforts him, even as her own faith is tested; and John Bennett Perry and Ann Walker as a bickering retired couple who provide delightful comic relief.