Can a play be emotionally powerful, darkly cynical, and ridiculously absurd? Sarah Schulman thinks so. Her play Manic Flight Reaction attempts to be all three concurrently, making for a deeply confused evening of theatre.
On one level, the play explores, with genuine compassion, the abandonment felt by Maggie, a college professor in the Midwest (the remarkably authentic ranch-house interior is by scenic designer Louisa Thompson) still emotionally adrift after her aviatrix mother, Claire, committed suicide 30 years ago, crashing her plane into the Atlantic during a flight demonstration.
When Maggie learns that this event is the subject of a new film, she must figure out how to tell her daughter Grace the true circumstances surrounding Claire's death. The film not only allows Schulman to vilify Hollywood's ability to exploit private tragedy, it also gives Manic Flight Reaction one of its truly absurd touches. In tandem with the film's release, its producer hopes to create a fashion craze -- hawking pink aviator helmets with "MANIC" emblazoned across the front. Grace and her boyfriend Luke take to wearing the caps during the play.
Director Trip Cullman's production never manages to reconcile the play's tones and plot elements, including Maggie's outing of a former girlfriend who is now the wife of a Republican presidential candidate. (Political commentary is rife in the play.) Both director and playwright leave the central performers adrift.
Deirdre O'Connell works valiantly to make the absent-minded professor Maggie both charming and an eccentric caricature. Jessica Collins and Michael Esper infuse Grace and Luke with alternating measures of cynicism and hope, but they cannot turn them into credible characters.
As two of Schulman's more grandiose thematic monsters, Molly Price (as Maggie's hard, self-denying ex) and Angel Desai (as a hawkish tabloid journalist in search of a scoop) have more success in this thematically rich but unengaging and often tedious play.