Review: AIRNESS at Dobama

Air guitar is a form of dance and movement in which performers pretend to play an imaginary electric guitar. Performances include exaggerated strumming motions and recorded rock music often coupled with loud singing or lip-synching.

On the surface, AIRNESS, Chelsea Marcantel's play now on stage at Dobama, is a spoof on air guitar competitions and the people who participate in what many think of as a frivolous activity.

The story centers on Nina (Maria Burks), a band guitarist, who enters her first air guitar competition, supposedly to compete. In reality she is searching for her boy-friend, D Vicious (Michael Glavan), the reigning national air guitar champion, who broke off their relationship, leaving with no notice or reason.

She meets contenders Cannibal Queen (Eric Scerbak), Shreddy Eddy (Lue Brett), Golden Thunder (Corin B. Self) and Facebender (Tim Keo), all who are conflicted and in a search for personal purpose. Instead of finding meaningless, she finds friendships, and discovers what it means to find airness, both on stage and in life.

Airness is the state of a person so absorbed in something that they lose their inhibitions and transcend the lack of self-worth, thus setting themselves free to be in a state of pure joy.

The play helps one to realize that the angst of living, especially in these days of Covid, conflicting realities, and political and philosophical strife, has unleashed a need for escapes from reality. It illustrates that angst can present itself in physical and verbal aggression, as has been displayed on commercial airlines, in attacking school board members due to misunderstanding the teaching of racial and ethnic awareness, participating in the Black Lives Matter and/or Me-Too rallies, or acting out negatively at athletic events.

The script seems to proport that maybe a little more air guitar participation might be the way to get rid of stress in a non-aggressive way.

Marcantel, who is presently developing new plays at the Cleveland Play House through a commission from the Roe Green Fund for New American Plays, won the American Theatre Critics Association Osborn New Play Award in 2018 for AIRNESS. She recently won the Richard Rodgers Award for Musical Theatre from the American Academy of Arts and Letters for her new musical THE MONSTER.

Reviews of other productions of AIRNESS posit that, "If you are looking for an amazing piece of theatre that will get you on your feet tapping, wailing and clapping in mid-air - while also moving you to reflect on and care for yourself - look no further; this bad boy is for you" and

"An all-out comedy that's fricking funny, hella heartfelt, and badass brilliant."

I wish I could use the same platitudes as those reviews for Dobama's production.

Though the performance, under the directorship of Nathan Motto, is entertaining and develops the play's theme, it lacks the dynamism needed to get the audience wailing and clapping. The drawback is not the fault of the actors' character development or line presentations, it is their lack of charisma during the air guitar presentations. It is difficult, based on the generally weak routines of the Dobama cast, to believe that thousands of people attend the national and international air guitar competitions.

Weak that is, with the exception of Trey Gilpin, the show's uninhibited, compelling, rad, heartfelt, rockin', narrator. The rest of the cast could take some lessons from him on really getting into the music and being uninhibited.

Some may argue that the lack of talent of the guitar performances aids in drawing the attention to the play's purpose, but, these are supposed to be people who make the national finals, and those in the real-world are dynamic, compelling and emotionally involving. (If you have never seen a well-performed air guitar playing go onto You Tube and watch. Try https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMIws86ZLyk)

The hour and a half production is performed without intermission.

As per Equity rules, those in attendance must show proof that they are totally vaccinated and wearing of a mask during the entire production.

CAPSULE JUDGEMENT: AIRNESS is a fine play to attend if you are feeling angst and need an escape. Though much of the air guitar playing could have been more dynamic and involving, the message of the author stands out.

How To Get Tickets

AIRNESS continues at Dobama through November 21, 2021. For tickets go to: https://www.dobama.org/tickets-index or call 216-932-3396

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