Man vs. Machine is the theme of NYC-based Collective Unconscious' powerful new play, Charlie Victor Romeo. The 10-person company based its text on black-box transcripts of six plane disasters. The actors play the pilots and flight attendants involved in these life-and-death situations which are fought out in a simulated cockpit replete with crackling radio signals, engine noises, and flashing lights. The audience (meant to feel as if it were aboard an airliner) is plunged into each dangerous incident and watches, with rising horror and macabre fascination, as the crew struggles, valiantly, with technological failure.
Human error enters into some of the accident scenarios, too: in the case of an Aeroperu flight stricken with computer problems, the pilot lost all common sense and refused to switch the automatic controls to manual (despite the frenzied appeal of his co-pilot). In another instance, the maintenance crew caused the system breakdown by taping over a key hydraulic component. What strikes one in watching these airborn battles with death is just how difficult it is to fly an airliner, especially when one or two of its engines conk out or its wings become covered in ice.
The stresses and strains on the pilots become immense, and it is to their credit that they rarely snap. On the contrary, they go down fighting to the very last second to avoid that looming mountain or office building. David loses to Goliath most of the time in CVR, but we can't help but love David all the more for his big, brave heart.
