… aviation pioneers …
Interestingly, diaries give an important slant on a character but they aren’t a last word!
A play about an encounter among three early aviators, Charles Lindbergh, whose first solo flight across the Atlantic electrified the world, his wife Ann Morrow Lindbergh, a pioneer aviator and talented writer, and French aviator and writer Antoine de Saint-Exupery is an intriguing idea, but NORTH, even though drawn from their writings, doesn’t characterize these historical, intensely charismatic figures consistently or believably.
In 1939, it happened in fact that Anne Lindbergh met St.-Ex, as we fast learn to call him, when he wrote a preface for her book about flight, Listen! The Wind. Though she never saw him again, her diaries reveal the encounter loomed large in her emotional life. This play, taking off from that incident, sets Anne at the apex of a love triangle with two men, Charles and St-Ex.
The loss of the Lindbergh’s first child in the famous kidnapping of 1932 caused the actual Anne as well as Charles huge and lasting grief but — this feisty woman went on to have five more children and become a successful author! One can’t recognize the woman who flew five continents, published 13 books, won major awards in literature and aviation in the skittish, timid Anne of North (Christina Ritter).
An undercurrent of petty complaining runs throughout: e.g., Anne has to write at a kitchen table, though this woman of privilege could have had any writing set-up she wanted. Anne’s arbitrary responses and motivations are a main flaw of this play. What on earth is she trying to do that she isn’t in fact doing? What does she want? What does St.-Ex (Christopher Marlowe Roche) have that Charles (Kalafatic Poole) doesn’t have? The diaries may read this way in part, but this doesn’t square with the real life persona or create a compelling character.
Anne seems rocked by that fact that her husband uses a black pencil in editing her writing: well, gee, what writer enjoys being edited? though they all benefit from it. There’s a sense that Charles, the forthright man of action, somehow doesn’t understand her as much as the poetic St.-Ex, but Charles takes an engaged and appreciative interest in her work, reads it carefully, and — wrapping her in his jacket on a chilly night — is considerate and tender. All St.-Ex has to offer is words words words and these aren’t particularly telling.
The Lindberghs’ reputation suffered on the eve of World War II when they appeared to all the world as German sympathizers and took a strong public stance of keeping the United States out of the war. At one point in the play, an independent-minded Anne stands up to Charles, opposing his identification as the Jews as one of the causes of the coming war, but in the subsequent scene when she writes an isolationist book arguing for U.S. non-intervention in the war, the play “excuses” her by indicating she’s under Charles’ thumb. Is she her own person or his creature? Which is it? Whichever the playwright finds convenient in using the play to create an apologia for Anne.
The highly creative staging is marked by an imaginative compression of ideas. The characters sit on swings suspended from above, swing on them twirl them toward one another and away, the motion of the swings echoing their fluctuating emotional states and relationships while at the same time providing a backdrop of height and space central to these aviators’ lives. In this context, it’s fascinating to consider the swing’s long history of conveying flirtation and beyond — to erotic elation, as for example in Fragonard’s famous 18th-century painting, The Swing.
In contrast, a tall, gravity rooted ladder provides another venue for the characters’ physical agility as a stand-in for their physical courage — and at the same time is the immobile reminder of the kidnapping in which the baby was carried off down a ladder. Congratulations on this fine design to Scenic Designer Brad Steinmetz, Lighting Designer Anjeanette Stokes and Choreographer Karen Mozingo.
North plays at 59E59 theater in mid-town Manhattan through October 28th.
brian ofsie
NORTH, conceived by Christina Ritter and Jennifer Schlueter, written and directed by Jennifer Schlueter, the for/word company at 59E59 Theater – Let’sTalk Off-Broadway
Boris
NORTH, conceived by Christina Ritter and Jennifer Schlueter, written and directed by Jennifer Schlueter, the for/word company at 59E59 Theater – Let’sTalk Off-Broadway
Many thanks for your thoughtful comment, and for noting a typo which I have corrected. I always worry I’ll miss a typo and appreciate it when they’re called to my attention. There’s no arguing with the fact that you have found so much to enjoy in the play on multiple visits. I had a different experience. Rather than just say “this was very boring,” I tried to understand why, including asking myself the question, why didn’t these characters engage me? Of course, I try to maintain the perspective that I don’t have a monopoly on right ideas — in other… Read more »
As I read your post, I actually thought this was a high school student responding to the play as part of an assignment. The voice of your post is marked with incomplete thoughts (e.g. “What does St.-Ex (Christopher Marlowe Roche) have that Charles (Kalafatic Poole)” [I would mark this “frag”) and shallow lines like “The characters sit on swings suspended from above”–as opposed to what other kind of swings? It just seems that a person choosing to critique the writing of another should demonstrate an ability to write that at least matches the caliber of that to which she is… Read more »
This play really steps in with a lot of swings used to convey meanings having to do with love … a few of them are pictured on the link I included in the review and I hope some people will check them out. Thanks for writing, Wilbur (hey, would that be Wilbur Wright!)
Yvonne
Perhaps the most interesting part of this play was the staging – your association with Fragonard’s The Swing is really a great insight. Other than that, the play really didn’t develop characters and the attempt to have Lindbergh rationalizes his isolationists; pro-German, anti-Semitic stand was ineffectual, unrealistic and ultimately inappropriate. This was not one of 59/59’s better forays into contemporary theater.
Yes, I’ve seen some great plays at 59 E 59!
This play was really a disappointment. The characters are less than real, and the plot is really nothing. There is much more to the three characters that is depicted in this one act rendition. 59/59 usually does much better – looking forward to its next production.