Flare Path Sheds Light on Realities of War

Flashing lights, black-and-white video projections of launching aircraft and sounds of revving engines flooded Wright Memorial Theatre this weekend as part of the visceral backdrop for the fall faculty show, Flare Path (Nov. 5-7). Set in a hotel near an RAF Bomber Command airbase during World War II, the play was written by popular English dramatist Terence Rattigan in 1941. Its name refers to the lamps stationed alongside runways that allow aircraft to take off and land in the darkest of hours. The story behind Flare Path, however, is far more than the theatrical perils of air combat, or even the gravity of life in wartime Britain, though these are salient themes – rather, it is a tale of duty, heartache and morals that provides a most telling glimpse into human nature and all of its inner turmoil.

We are all familiar with the quintessential wartime story of men fighting valiantly on foreign fronts whilst their wives and sweethearts eagerly await their return. It is this emotional matter that forms the foundation of Flare Path – though Rattigan, who drew inspiration for the play from his own experiences as a tail gunner during World War II (and miraculously saved the incomplete manuscript amidst a crisis in air combat), added a twist to the tale by dropping a love triangle into the mix.

Actress Patricia Graham, portrayed by Sofia Donavan ’18 in her first Middlebury College theatre performance, is spending the weekend with her husband Teddy, played by Jabari Matthew ’17, at the Falcon Hotel on the Lincolnshire coast, when she is surprised by a visit from her past lover, Hollywood film star Peter Kyle, played by Sebastian LaPointe ’18. To throw a wrench in things, Teddy is suddenly assigned to a night raid over Germany that very evening, leaving Patricia to grapple with lingering feelings for her old flame and a sense of obligation toward a husband whom she barely knows. The couple met and married during one of Teddy’s week-long leaves; Patricia and Peter were madly in love before then and would have married had Peter not been unavailable. With Peter calling for her affection in the wake of his waning career and Teddy counting on her for emotional support, Patricia finds herself trapped in a moral dilemma. Who needs her most?

The presence of two other couples in the hotel contribute further to an already emotionally trying tale. Maudie Miller, portrayed by Quincy Simmons ’18, has managed to take a short time off work to see her husband, tail gunner Sergeant Dave “Dusty” Miller, played by Alex Herdman ’17. Meanwhile, Do- ris, played by Ashley Fink ’18, is visiting her partner Count Skriczevinsky, portrayed by August Rosenthal ’17, a Polish pilot who decided to serve with the RAF after his wife and son were killed by the Nazis. Written at the end of 1941, a point in history when England stood as the lone player against the German National Socialist war machine, Flare Path has a rich premise fraught with tension and uncertainty, prompting an emotional whirl- wind for all parties involved.

Director Richard Romagnoli, a professor of theatre, was careful to address the inner conflicts that the women in the play had to contend with.

“These fliers leave their wives like husbands going off for a day at work. Many never came back,” he said. “The women were powerless to impose their will. Those who were veterans stoically accept it. Patricia, who had just moved to the base to live with her husband, says to him as he’s about to walk out the door on a mission, ‘Teddy, I don’t know what to say,’ to which he replies, ‘Come back.’ It must have been a surreal experience – will he return in six hours or not? I’ve read that around 55,000 RAF bomber crews were killed over Europe between 1939 and 1945.”

Anxiety levels amongst the characters reach their peak when one of the planes is destroyed by the German air force, and Count Skriczevinsky does not return from the mission alongside Teddy and Dusty. The meticulously executed crash scene – the resounding boom, the flickering fluorescent lights and the looks of harrowing shock and dread on the characters’ faces – stood out as one of the most gripping moments of the night.

In creating a backdrop for the play, Romagnoli explained that he tried to “give the war a presence that would, at times, dominate the space through the use of video, sound and lights.”

“I thought that was important to convey the extent to which the war subsumed the hotel and its residents,” he said.
As characters filter in and out of the front lobby of the hotel throughout the nerve-wracking night, certain sections of the dialogue shed light on the terrifying magnitude of their situation.

“I suppose if I’d been in England longer than a mere three months, I would be as blasé about raids,” Peter comments at one point, as the sounds of bombers fill the air. “Listen. Those ours?”

“Theirs,” Maudie says after a long pause. She has lived through so many bombings that she can tell the difference between Ger- man and British air raids.

Resilience amidst massive hardships stands out as a prominent theme in Flare Path.

“If there was anything that I would hope the audience members took away from the performance, it would be that they became more aware of the ability humans have to cope with day-to-day life stressors,” Matthew, who played Teddy, stated. “What the audience members choose to do with that awareness is really up to them.”

Despite the seriousness of the plot premise, the cast strived to strike a balance between heaviness and humor. And so, even as the entire storyline seemed to verge on tragedy, audience members found them-selves chuckling periodically throughout the night.

“A dramatic scene or moment is followed by a comic scene,” Romagnoli explained. “It was important for these antithetical moments to hit their targets. Comedy undermines the gravity, while the drama reminds us of the stakes. Ultimately, their world is an absurdity, one created to make their conditions tolerable.”

The opening scene is crucial in setting this particular tone for the play, as Peter humorously attempts to negotiate a room for the night with the snarky hotel manager, Mrs. Oakley, as played by Lana Meyer ’17. In other moments, the young waiter, Percy, portrayed by Maxwell Lieblich ’18, brings a much-needed burst of energy to the group through his feverish serving of drinks and light-hearted comments. Later in the evening, Doris’s alcohol consumption drives her to a state of drunken silliness (as depicted charmingly by Ashley Fink ’17), which provides a welcome reprieve from the tension emanating from the rest of the room.

Besides a few moments of particular emotional intensity, Flare Path is a play full of understatements. As Professor of English and the Liberal Arts John Bertolini stated in the Program Note, this is perhaps best exemplified by Maudie’s matter-of-fact comment, “There’s a war on, and things have got to be a bit different, and we’ve just got to get used to it – that’s all.”

To characterize a life turned upside-down by nightly air raids as “a bit different” is a testament to the mindset of the British public – and it is this tendency to understate that stood at the heart of last weekend’s performance.

“There existed several places in this play in which not just myself but perhaps the entire rest of the cast had to channel large and at times complicated human emotions, while not acting these emotions in a large way,” Matthew explained. “It wasn’t really a matter of suppression as it was a matter of understatement.”

Unfortunately, some of the nuanced expression behind these performances may have been lost on the audience due to the characters’ thickly-accented speech, rapid-fire delivery of dialogue and usage of time era-specific jargon. The faculty production of Flare Path deeply engaged the audience in many other regards, however – from its breathtaking aesthetics and sound design to its striking depiction of wartime terrors to the flurries of light and calm in between. Though it is not always an easy play to watch, in humanizing a small piece of history, it is so worth the telling.