George Brant’s script of Grounded is so extraordinary that if nothing else it is absolutely worth going to see such a wonderful piece of writing come to life. Grounded is a complex and moving portrayal of one female pilots struggle with motherhood, marriage, and being ‘grounded’ as a drone-pilot. Essentially an hour-long monologue, the pacing and variation in the writing are thoughtful and rich enough to create a highly compelling piece of theatre.

The set is minimal, and the visual sparseness nicely echoes the world of American suburbia and military life in which the story takes place. Despite this sparseness the staging effectively creates different physical and mental worlds that the audience travels to with the protagonist throughout the piece. [More]

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The offerings in this year’s Auckland Fringe Festival lean heavily towards quirky entertainment: imaginative scenarios with the emphasis on fun. This is the one that stands alone: not bright, not fantastical, not fun. It’s grey, grounded in contemporary reality, and very worth seeing. 

That’s not surprising, since it’s the work of American playwright George Brant who keeps earning prestigious awards for a list of plays regularly described in superlatives. 

Exploring ethical dilemmas is what theatre does best, and the scenario of Grounded allows full scope for this.

In brief, a woman fighter pilot, a US air force major, becomes pregnant. Any forced ejection from the plane would bring on an abortion, and she won’t risk killing the foetus. She is grounded – shifted from the job she loved, flying in the high blue sky, to sitting in a trailer in the desert near Las Vegas. From air force to chair force. Now pilot of an unmanned aerial vehicle, a drone laden with armaments, she and her team track the presumed ‘guilty’ high above another grey desert half a world away. Half a world, but only 1.2 seconds between her pushing a button, and the obliteration of the mark.

After years of facing the dangers of life in battle, this is safe job. Each time her shift ends, she gets to go home to her husband and daughter. It’s combat without risk to her.

Or is it? Only if she can cope with the daily juxtaposition of the two lives she is living: the safe world of one sandy desert and the other over which she soars as the eye of God in the heavens, as judge and executioner. Her husband begs her to change out of her uniform before she returns home, but more and more she can’t do it. Divisions become less clear, what was sharp is now grey. She is absorbed and repelled by her role, and longs to return to the blue of the sky above that she remembers, away from the grey of the desert below.

Director Alex Bonham, and sole performer Erica Kröger, are both experienced and multi-talented arts practitioners, and together they excel in this production. Erica Kröger as the pilot gives a confident and convincing performance.

The staging is supplemented by some video. More of this would improve the whole, and the timing of the final clip (at least on opening night) could do with adjustment.  

Others involved are Vivian Ngwerume (Video Design), Austin Mason (Lighting Design/Operator), Lauren Andrews (Production Assistant), and Anthony Wong (Graphic Design). 

Overall, this is a very worthwhile play that presents important ideas for reflection and perhaps debate. It’s worth making the effort to get to one of the remaining performances.

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