FEAR OF FLIGHT by Jillian Keiley, Robert Chafe, Jonathan Monro and others (Artistic Fraud/Factory/Die in Debt/Cahoots). At Factory (125 Bathurst). To May 24. $20-$37. 416-504-9971. See Performance Spring Festival listing. Rating: NNNN
Though its characters experience a bumpy cross-Canada plane ride, there’s only smooth sailing in Fear Of Flight, an intriguing production by Artistic Fraud of Newfoundland.
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After commissioning monologues from eight playwrights, director Jillian Keiley and author Robert Chafe worked the material about aerophobia into a jump-cut sort of scenario. In it, 12 passengers and a pair of flight attendants express their neuroses aloud or to themselves.
Keiley and composer Jonathan Monro (he also plays Dennis, who functions as a nervous narrator) fill the show not only with stories but also with choreography and choral music, the latter an almost constant heartbeat for the show. Based on sounds rather than lyrics, the harmonically and rhythmically intricate score blends gospel, pop, jazz, rounds and a bit of whistling.
The show frequently goes into fantasy mode, when a character’s mood is projected onto the others and they enact her or his often disturbed thoughts with props, hand gestures or dreamlike episodes.
The cast is fine, but there’s standout work by Christine Brubaker as Joyce, jealous of her lesbian sister’s wedding Sandy Gow as Blandy, revealing how she copes with a life of violence Petrina Bromley as a bride who’s had an unusual wedding experience Jovanni Sy as Will, flying to an uncomfortable reunion and Mia Mansfield as chatterbox Glynis, whose life was changed when Jesus literally walked into her apartment.
