Saturday Matinee

Yesterday, I got to see a great Bay Area show with a few friends. It was a bit of a last minute trip, but I had worked on Saturday and really needed something to look forward to. So I called up two of my friends, and we snagged last minute rush tickets to see Bill Pullman’s Expedition 6 at the Magic Theatre, located at Fort Mason next to the beautiful bay with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge.

At the Marina, right outside the theater, with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background

I went into this show with a few misgivings, as I’ve mentioned previously. The mixed reviews didn’t help, with the main concern that this play lacks coherence. I think it helped that I did some research on my own before I saw it, and knew I wasn’t expecting a Mamma Mia or something like that.

I never thought that I would care so much about a space shuttle disaster, but the story is so human, it’s hard not to care if you hear the story. This play retells the story of the Columbia shuttle mission, which was sent to rescue three astronauts that were stranded on the International Space Station, but crashed while in the middle of this compassionate mission, killing the three members on board. The story continues to tell of the three stranded astronauts and their completion of the mission to return back home to Earth. An interesting twist added to this story is that the Iraq War is occurring at the same time, which buries this space story onto Page 17 of the newspaper, and so very few people heard about this story.

Interesting parallels and metaphors are made between the space shuttle story and the concurrent war in Iraq. A common question persists – When is it ok to put someone’s life at risk? What is “acceptable risk, acceptable loss” when human lives are at stake? Other questions are left in the audience minds, such as why are NASA mission members, as well as soldiers, required to always answer positively without questioning orders, when that question could be your final hope for life? And why didn’t we hear more about the Columbia shuttle disaster and Expedition 6 in the press when it happened a mere 3 years ago?

The format of the show was pieced together as snippets of news reports (including CNN), round table debates, Congressional hearings, interviews with the astronauts as well as their wives, and narration as if it occurred in the participants’ heads, with the plot being reenacted in dance and movement. Not all the facts are there, and you get the feeling of a frustrated person who’s searching for the truth on what happened, when your only resources are spotty news reports and commentary. A number of questions remain – perhaps Bill Pullman, in researching for this show, never found the answers himself?

The standout for me was the beautiful integration of dance and movement with the story. I am really loving the integration of different art forms to make a completely new sort of show. This was utilized well in the beginning, where actors walk in random directions around the stage, as if they were flying stars or planets, and simultaneously slow down as the narrator says the word “omen”, to emphasize the word which later becomes an important theme. The use of dance to emphasize the acting and the plot, and vice versa, is what I love about it. Low flying trapezes were used in this production to allude to the lack of gravity in space. Perhaps the dancer in me loves this as a moth to flame, but the flowy swings and the lazy twisting of the trapezes as well as the tremulous balances were beautiful to watch, illustrating and adding to the plot as we, as well as the actors, are objects subject to the forces of nature. Arwen Anderson was a standout to me in her beautiful willowy movements; I suspected a dance background and her cast biography revealed a background in trapeze and aerial silk at the Circus Center of San Francisco.

Arwen Anderson, with Robert Karma Robinson, Justin Walvoord, and Brent Rose

Despite the revelation throughout the show of the failures of government as they hid facts, in both the Iraq War as well as the shuttle expeditions, the show surprisingly ends on a hopeful note, with words on how “home” to each of us always means something different. This could mean exactly that, but what I read was that despite these horrible things going on in America and what we call home, sometimes all we can do is step outside of that and stare out the window in wonderment at what we see, because it’s still our home, and yes, it’s still curiously beautiful.

Perhaps it’s because I love John Doyle’s minimalist shows so much, but sometimes the use of props was too literal. The thing that bugged me the most was when the helicopter rescued the astronauts, not only was there the sound of a big helicopter as if it was landing inside the theater, but an actor walked across the stage holding a power drill with mini spinning helicopter wings. The sound of the helicopter would be enough for the audience members to imagine a huge helicopter landing beside the parachute, and the prop was redundant, as well as looking a tad silly.

The ensemble cast was excellent, acting to genuinely move and impact audience members. All exceeded the physical demands of their roles, and played their multiple roles well. An admittedly biased standout for me was John Behlmann, whom I had seen in Journey’s End on Broadway. It was good to see him sink his teeth into a much larger role, playing multiple roles including humorous ones. His tall stature also added drama and gravity to his dance movements, and his stage presence made it hard not to watch him in the middle of ensemble dancing.

Robert Karma Robinson, Justin Walvoord and Brent Rose

Overall, I found myself deliciously losing myself in this gorgeous moving production, relishing in its open ended question marks and eerie coindences and the raw “unfinished” quality (which the costumes helped to accentuate, or as my friend put it, all the actors look like J. Crew models). I highly recommend seeing this production with friends who are thoughtful – I took a lawyer as well as a scientist, and one of my favorite parts about this production was analyzing and talking about the show with them afterwards. Another random note: if you’re uncomfortable with actors staring at you, stay away from the front rows.

Go see this production before it closes next weekend. Rush tickets are available for as cheap as $10, even full priced the tickets aren’t expensive. Watch with an open and inquiring mind with likeminded friends, and it’s a great evening out. Click here for tickets.