Grounded, by George Brant, at The Public

Grounded, by playwright George Brant, tells the story of a cocky Air Force pilot, grounded initially because she got pregnant, and then transferred to what she calls “the chairforce,” pilots who sit in trailers on bases thousands of miles away from the war operating drones. George Brant is an old friend of mine, we were in a theatre company back in Chicago together, and appeared in many shows together. Grounded started out small and has been growing in momentum over the last year, with productions all over the place. Finally, the major news hit that Julie Taymor would be directing a production of it at The Public, and Anne Hathaway had signed on to star. Incredible news that spread like wildfire through George’s group of friends.

And so now, Grounded has arrived. A group of us (many of whom I have not seen in over 20 years) gathered on Tuesday night for dinner and the show. George was with us. Derek and Emily, Jackie, Lynn, Bridget and Simon, Jim … We are all connected. Jim and I went to college together, and eventually he moved to Chicago, working in the same theatre company as we all did (although this was after I had left for New York). Derek started the theatre company (and recently directed a production of Grounded). Mitchell got involved with the group. I got involved. I met George and Bridget, I saw Lynn in a production of The Public before I got involved (and, coincidentally, that production starred Alexandra Billings, who – years later – would become one of my dearest friends). There were many absent whom we missed: Mitchell and Kate and Stephen and Joe and Martha and many other names, we threw the names around the table, we reminisced, we roared with laughter, we were all so emotional that we made about 5 toasts in a period of 10 minutes. We couldn’t stop. To George! To Julie Taymor and Anne Hathaway! To Grounded!

Grounded is a one-woman show, and it plays without intermission. That is a hell of a lot of dialogue, a hell of a lot of time alone onstage … a tour de force role for an actress, and Anne Hathaway was absolutely incredible in the production I saw on Tuesday night. I had bought tickets and was in the back row (but there really isn’t a bad seat in that house), and I guess someone must have not shown up because an usher came over to me saying there was a seat in the front row, would I like to take it? Yes, I would like to take it. The front row was basically on the stage-level (there are seats on three sides of the stage), so I was, at times, only a foot away from Hathaway. You can’t lie when you’re that close to an audience. And she was in it. It was a thrill to be that close, to really watch her work, and create, and segue. There’s an operatic quality to the journey the character goes on, from tough-talking enthusiastic pilot to struggling dissociated depressive to something even more disturbing at the very end. And Hathaway created it like an unstoppable flow. One thing flowed to the next, there was no herky-jerky transitional periods. You felt – you actually felt – this woman disintegrate. And it was a huge loss because those opening sequences … you fell in love with her, her humor and spirit and bravery, her honesty. You can’t fake a disintegration like that. You have to actually go through it, and Hathaway did.

The stage is covered in beautiful waves of sand, a light layer, and Taymor has surrounded the character with a really incredible production, with lights and lasers and video screens … all appropriate to the text, nothing added that didn’t feel necessary. It plunged us into her world, the world of monitors and screens and blips and beeps … living her life staring at a screen. Some of the effects created were truly haunting, especially because on the back wall of the stage was a large tilted mirror, so that everyone going on below was reflected on that back wall. It added to the depersonalization going on in the story, the character split off from her instincts, her self … another ghostly self floating around behind her.

Hathaway has a girlishness and a femininity that has helped make her career, and so it was thrilling to watch her expand her skills to play the trash-talking AC/DC-loving tomboy pilot, whose entire life (and passion and purpose for being) is altered by being grounded. The play begins with her monologue about what she calls “the blue,” her experience piloting fighter jets through the enormous expanse of sky, the rush, the endlessness, the sense of space and speed and possibility. George’s writing is rhapsodic and intense. Poetic and emotional, but always connected. This is a character. A character completely and gloriously and joyously identified with her job, as you have to be with such professions. She’s part of an elite group. Whenever she comes home on leave, she can’t wait to get back to “the blue.” Her spirit is always yearning to be back up there where she belongs. She describes her life as a pilot, beers and pool with the other guys after missions, she’s proud of being one of the guys. Her life suits her. She knows who she is.

All of that changes after she unexpectedly gets pregnant after what seems to be (at first) a one-night stand. With a civilian, no less! She is “grounded.” And the one-night-stand, a guy named Eric, turns out to be a stand-up guy, a good guy, who proposes marriage and wants to start a life with her. Now here’s the deal. There is no Eric. He does not appear onstage, ever, because the whole thing is told to us by Hathaway. But my God did he appear! I SAW him up there, Hathaway’s vivid personalization of who that character was, and how that relationship operated, was so successful, so present. Afterwards, standing in the lobby, I found myself saying, “I love Eric” and everyone laughed and nodded, and we all talked about Eric for a little bit, and how he really was doing his best in a very tough situation (what do you do when your can-do tough wife totally falls apart?).

Hathaway brought it all to life. The romance with Eric. Her feelings about her baby. She is determined that her baby girl will not be a “hair-tosser”, as she calls them (in other words, a girlie-girl). She is going to do something with her life. She is maybe going to be a pilot too. It is her daughter’s inheritance – “the blue” could belong to her as well. But things don’t work out as planned, and the baby girl is drawn instead to pink pretty ponies … and our poor heroine has to suck it up and get into the ponies too. The script is full of wonderful details like that, humorous and human.

The issue of drones, and how they are used to fight wars, starts to rise in the story once she is grounded and learns that no, she will not be going “back to war,” she will be fighting the war from the ground. After a training period, she starts her new job, driving to work and then coming home every night. A total transition for a person used to deployments. She misses the camaraderie. She misses the feeling of purpose. She misses using her skills. It feels totally weird to drive to work and come home at night. That’s not who she is, that’s not how she understands her purpose in life. But most of all, she misses the feeling of danger. Danger is actually a part of war, the threat of death is real, and pushing a button from thousands of miles away removes the danger factor (for her anyway), and she can’t get her mind around it. She still gets the adrenaline white-knuckle rush, and has to keep reminding herself that there is no threat, she’s safe. But she is not safe.

Things begin to spiral down. The final 20/25 minutes of the play are harrowing. Because the war is seen through the eyes of one narrator, a narrator we have come to know and love, we follow her wherever she goes. And as she falls apart, a feeling of helplessness comes over the audience. It is a disintegration that seemingly cannot be stopped. Counseling can’t touch it. Eric’s support can’t touch it. Her daughter’s sweetness can’t touch it. The reality of what she is doing, with the drones, begins to crack her apart.

Grounded makes its points without lecturing. Its strength lies in the fact that we see a controversial political issue through the eyes of a military insider. She’s a warrior. She’s patriotic. She’s hard-working and incredibly competitive and smart. It may confront some people’s uninformed opinions about such people. It is right that it should do so. Grounded humanizes a very complex issue.

There’s a moment when Eric, trying to cheer his wife up, trying to remind her of who she is, of “the blue” that she loves so much, makes her a mix CD to listen to on the way home from the drone base. Taymor has chosen a bunch of songs to make up that mix tape – hard heavy metal thrashing, AC/DC and others – but each song felt personal, the way a mix tape would, each song is chosen for her – as a pep talk from Eric. That music becomes Love personified. And Anne Hathaway, listening to each song, would launch herself into rhapsodies of dancing, arm-pumping, every single gesture, every single moment, an expression of her love and gratitude for her husband for knowing her so well, for getting her so deeply. The mix tape ended with Dolly Parton’s “Light of a Clear Blue Morning” (such a perfect choice!), and the explosion of emotion – up on that stage, and out in the audience – was palpable. Palpable to the point that I thought my heart would burst.

Grounded runs at The Public until May 24. You can buy tickets here. But keep your eyes peeled for a production of it in your area. The show has launched in a very real way. It’s going to be done everywhere, I reckon.

Congratulations, George. Your success is so well-deserved.