"Helter Skelter on the Delta"
As I watched AIRLINE HIGHWAY at a recent preview, I knew in my bones that this ambitious, well-performed jambalaya of a play by Lisa D'Amour would sharply split critics and audiences. Two friends I
ran into during the intermission were deeply unhappy, while their son, an architect, joyously held
both thumbs up. Not wishing to commit yet, although I was definitely on the side of the architect's parents, I expressed ambivalence, saying I needed to see the second act before making up my
mind. Sorry to say, act two only deepened my disappointment.
AIRLINE HIGHWAY was originally staged for Chicago’s
Steppenwolf Theatre by Joe Mantello, whose excellent production, with certain cast
changes, is now being given under the aegis of the Manhattan Theatre Club. It’s
set in the parking lot of the Hummingbird Motel, a shabby, down-at-heels resort,
once bright pink, now faded beige, located on the eponymous road leading out of
New Orleans toward Baton Rouge. Ms. D’Amour, who lived for many years in New
Orleans, uses this crumbling motel as the locus for what is essentially a paean
to the city’s lively down and outers, the strippers, hookers, burlesque
performers, junkies, bartenders, karaoke wranglers, and sexually unconventional
denizens who make their living, such as it is, in the French Quarter hangouts
catering to the city’s large tourist trade.
Ms. D’Amour’s characters—each (not just the whore) with
a proverbial heart of gold—may not be educated, but they’re all, in their way
(including Zoe), preternaturally wise, articulate, and kind. They speak a poetic prose that marks them more as creatures of the stage than life. There
are no villains, so to speak, and the chief dramatic clash concerns the
presence of Bait Boy (real name Greg, nicknamed because of his reputed fondness
for jail bait), considered to have betrayed the community by leaving it for a better
life. There seems to be a message here that his grabbing the brass ring of middle-class
comfort when he had the chance was an act of selfishness that somehow cast a
shadow over everyone he thereby left behind. Bait Boy, himself uncomfortable with his choice, eventually pays a price,
after he and Zoe return home, but the entire situation seems contrived to give
the play a modicum of conflict. The same could be said of making 16-year-old
Zoe a transcriber of the indigenous natives’ lives in order to induce narrative
exposition explaining who they are. Listening to some of Zoe's hifalutin responses makes you think of Margaret Mead trapped in a teenybopper’s
body.
The chief reason for bringing all these folks together
is to celebrate Miss Ruby’s funeral, which she wants held while she's still
alive so she can hear “the nice things that people had so say about” her. Before
we meet her, the flashily dressed and made-up congregants spend much of act two in
the parking lot, now festooned with Mardi Gras-like decorations, celebrating,
with upbeat dancing and music. Finally, after much buildup, Ruby's carried down
the staircase from her second-story room on a gurney, garishly made up
and wearing a flaming red wig over her strikingly white hair. Although she's only fitfully
compos mentis, she gets a magic realism moment in which to discourse briefly on
her philosophy of life, centering on the ecstasy of being liberated by sex, and
then says some endearingly patronizing words to her worshipers about how they’ve
fouled up their lives, which, like Catholics seeking absolution, they’re only too
happy to imbibe.
The pretentiousness of the speech reminded me of the old joke about the person who goes
through all sorts of hardships to ask a wise old guru the meaning of life. In
one of the many variations, the old guru answers: “The meaning of life is . . .
a fountain.” The questioner then describes all he’s gone through to ask his
question, finishing with, “And all you have to say is, life is a fountain?” To
which the monk responds: “Life is not a fountain?”
We must take on faith the premise that Miss Ruby
somehow gave “this gorgeous group of fuck ups” a reason to live, helping them
when they were in need and treating them with compassion when they suffered.
This is a family of believers, in fact, who sustain their belief through rituals, such
as the dancing and singing they perform in honor of Miss Ruby, the living/dead deity
they worship. They will continue to suffer and feel pain, but they’ll always
have the memory of Miss Ruby to adulate, and one another to ease the anguish.
The physical production can’t be faulted, with its
realistic parking lot (designed by Scott Pask), dilapidated sign, junk car
up on blocks, and two-story motel, all of it atmospherically lit by Japhy
Weideman. David Zinn’s costumes, especially the wild ones worn during the party
sequence, conjure up the New Orleans feeling of chintzy glitz, and Fitz Patton’s
music and sound design are in the same spirit, although you won't hear Dixieland in the mix. All the performances
shine equally in this ensemble effort, with White and Freeman making the most
vivid contributions.
Manhattan Theatre Club at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
261 W. 47th Street, NYC
Through June 14