Theater Review: Charlie Victor Romeo

During my first full day in Boston, I caught the final showing of the American Repertory Theater's production of Charlie Victor Romeo:

One of the most unique and riveting theatrical experiences to hit New York in seasons, CHARLIE VICTOR ROMEO (CVR) is a live performance documentary derived entirely from the "Black Box" transcripts of six major real-life airline emergencies. Allowing the audience into the tension-filled cockpits of actual flights in distress, CHARLIE VICTOR ROMEO is a fascinating portrait of the psychology of crisis and a testimony to the ability to live to the last second of life.

In case it's not obvious, Charlie Victor Romeo is phonetic alphabet for the letters CVR (cockpit voice recorder; as opposed to the FDR, or flight data recorder). As an aside, the phonetic alphabet is useful information to know--if you need to spell something over the phone or provide your flight confirmation number, it is very clear, and projects an all-business, 'don’t mess with me' attitude. Also, it sounds like you're calling in the coordinates for an air strike ;).

But back to the show. The production/staging was quite simple: a set of an open cockpit with four seats, instrument panel, and a cabin door, along with lighting and sound effects. The sound effects nailed it dead on and added immensely to the "immersion" of the play--e.g., the background engine noise, or that "deploy flaps" was followed by mechanical/hydraulic whirring, and the rush of wind that you hear during approach.



There were six scenes; each was introduced simply by a title slide stating date, flight number, location, aircraft type, and number of passengers. They included the Japan Airlines 747 that crashed into the side of a mountain (4 survivors out of 509 passengers), and the DC-10 that crashed at Sioux City after an engine failure disabled all three redundant hydraulic control systems; without flight controls, they had to use differential engine throttling to try to steer the plane (100 dead; 185 survivors).

I quickly got past the artifice of the stage, and "into the cockpit"; the performance was utterly gripping and chilling. It was eerie to be hearing the panicked last words of dead flight crews. The longer scenes grew and grew in intensity and fear; you would flinch at the blaring alarm horns and the repeating automatic "TOO LOW: TERRAIN" warnings. The crashes would end with impact and rending metal sounds, then a stage blackout—very effective.

Overall, I would thoroughly and strongly recommend the play. Although the run in Boston is over, it will be in DC, if anyone has plans to travel down there.

Oh yeah… back on a plane today. Nah… it didn't worry me; I think that I manage to make myself not worry about things I have no control over--mostly. Although it did make me that much more aware than usual that I am traveling at 30,000 feet at 600 mph in a pressurized aluminum tube.