RAVE!

BY JIM FARBER
THEATER CRITIC

Some of the hottest shows on television are reality-based series depicting up-close encounters with every conceivable disaster. So why not create a stage play based on such an event, centered on cockpit voice recordings of commercial and military aircraft in distress, at that moment when proper procedure and the certainty of impending death come face to face?

But if you were to create such a stage show, how could you maintain the type of journalistic honesty a portrayal of these scenes would call for without slipping into the trap of morbid sensationalism, outright bad taste or some perverse form of black humor?

These were the questions that faced Bob Berger, a former field engineer and cameraman for CNN, Patrick Daniels and Irving Gregory, members of Collective Unconscious, a New York-based off-off Broadway theater collective.

Their solution was “Charlie Victor Romeo,” a theatrical documentary derived entirely from edited black-box transcripts taken from six major airline and Air Force emergencies.

Hailed as “a vivid contribution to documentary theater” by The New York Times , the play became a surprise hit and was extended again and again at the company's small theater on New York's Lower East Side.

Now, “Charlie Victor Romeo” is on tour, with performances Wednesday through July 15 at the Macgowan Little Theatre on the Westwood campus of UCLA.

Unlike television ratings boosters like “Cops” and “When Animals Attack,” which are generally condemned for their sensational approach, “Charlie Victor Romeo” consistently has been praised for its unsparing truthfulness and dedication to protecting the people whose lives and deaths it depicts.

The play has been filmed by the U.S. Air Force as a training video for pilots and has been observed by West Point cadets enrolled in courses studying engineering psychology and human error.

It also has been seen by relatives of those who died in these and similar aircraft disasters. And, Berger said, their response has been consistently one of heartfelt appreciation for the honesty and integrity of the play's approach.

“My perspective, having worked in electronic news gathering,” said Berger, speaking from New York, “is that it's everything but reality. People might watch a show like `Cops' and think that's a realistic depiction of reality. But reality-based is just that, with emphasis on `based.' A camera crew inside a cop car can only give you the reality of a camera crew in a cop car. There's a difference between objective reality and subjective reality.”

The inspiration for “Charlie Victor Romeo,” Berger said, came about accidentally during a visit to a Lower East Side bookstore. While waiting in line to purchase the latest Patrick O'Brian sea saga, Berger's eye chanced to fall on a book dealing with investigations of aviation emergencies. He pointed the book out to his friend and co-member of Collective Unconscious, Irving Gregory, a former Army intelligence analyst and avid history buff.

“He went off to look at the book,” Berger recalled, “and a few minutes later, I came up behind him and he was reading the transcript from an incident. I looked at it, and out of the blue, I said, `That might be good material for a play.' And he looked at me and said, `You know, that might be a good idea.' ”

Berger and Irving began to investigate what it would take to make such a seemingly unlikely subject work on stage.

“We decided that we wanted to make a play that if an airline captain with 20,000 hours in the seat came and saw it, he would respect its authenticity,” said Berger, whose CNN assignments included coverage of the crash of TWA Flight 800 four years ago off Long Island.

“We realized that if we were going to do something like this, about events that potentially impact thousands of people, we had to try to be as ethical as possible. We didn't want people to feel we were criminals trying to cash in on a media circus. So, once we'd gotten started, we actually publicized the show to members of the aviation community, because we wanted them to come.”

The major sources for the play, Berger said, were the transcripts taken from the cockpit voice recorder, also known as Charlie, Victor, Romeo, or CVR. These are documents, Berger said, that are in the public domain.

During the performances of the play, information is projected on a screen before each incident. For example: United Airlines Flight 232, McDonald Douglas DC-10, Sioux Gateway Airport, Sioux City, Iowa, July 19, 1989. And at the end, a second slide reveals the outcome. In the case of Flight 232: 111 fatal, 47 serious, 125 minor, 13 uninjured.

The scenes are based entirely on the length of the CVR recording, from 20 to 40 minutes.

“The play represents six incidents,” Berger said. “Some are in their entirety, whether at the beginning the problem had developed or not. The rate — the time it takes us to do it, versus the time it actually took to happen — is different, because in reality people don't talk continually.”

The scenes also involve communication between the tower, the radar controllers and the service and the maintenance departments of the airlines, Berger said. And the show is performed by a cast of eight actors.

“This show has taken an emotional toll on all of us,” Berger said. But, he added: “We made every effort for it to do that. We're looking for an accurate representation of the people and their emotions and their psychological states. Our direction to the actors was to take the text and try as hard they could to obtain the psychological understanding of where it's coming from, as if they were in that situation. Then, to do that with the gravity and respect it needs.” COMING WHAT: “Charlie Victor Romeo.” WHEN: Opens at 8 p.m. Wednesday; plays at 8 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday through July 15. WHERE: Macgowan Little Theater, UCLA, Westwood. TICKETS: $35. INFORMATION: 310-825-2101, or www.performingarts.ucla.edu.

Publish Date:Friday June 22