Theater scripted from black boxes

'Charlie Victor Romeo' turns cockpit-recording trasnscripts of air emergencies into stage drama.

By Jeanne Claire van Ryzin

AMERICAN-STATESMAN ARTS WRITER

Tuesday, October 8, 2002

"Charlie Victor Romeo" -- it's the NATO phonetic spelling for "cockpit voice recorder." The black box. The device that holds all the secrets of why an airplane crashed -- or so we might wish.

The truth is that a black box recording only sheds a modicum of light on an incredibly complicated chain of events and how people reacted to it.

And that is theater. That is the artistic inspiration of "Charlie Victor Romeo," a performance documentary derived entirely from black box transcripts of six major airline emergencies. Winner of two Drama Desk awards, "Charlie" lands at the B. Iden Payne Theater Wednesday for four shows.

Created by Bob Berger, Patrick Daniels and Irving Gregory of Collective Unconscious Theater in New York, the play is based on Malcolm MacPherson's book "The Black Box" -- a collection of transcripts of the cockpit voice recorders recovered after crashes. Berger picked up MacPherson's book one day a few years ago when he and Gregory were browsing in a Manhattan bookstore and just happened to be talking about reality-based television programming. (Berger had worked for seven years as a news cameraman for CNN before embarking on a career in theater. While at CNN, Berger covered the TWA Flight 800 crash in 1996.) Why not create a play based on the real situations of airline emergencies, the two thought.

It wasn't so easy.

"We wanted to do it right ethically," Berger says by phone from New York. "It was crucial to treat the material in a way we felt was respectful. "

And so they agreed: Berger and his collaborators didn't change a word of the black box transcripts. And they didn't exploit theatrical special effects to heighten the drama.

"Charlie Victor Romeo" -- or "CVR" as it's usually abbreviated -- opened in fall 1999 in the Collective Unconscious's tiny storefront venue on New York's Lower East Side. Overwhelming popularity meant they extended the run for eight months. A big part of their fan base? The professional aviation community. Pilots came out of the woodwork to see the show. They stayed afterward and talked to the creators and cast, offering technical advice, commending the 80-minute intermissionless show for its tactfulness and non-sensational approach. In fact, to date, Berger and company estimate that nearly one-third of the people who have seen "CVR" are from the aviation community.

Then the U.S. Air Force got a bead on "CVR." And they loved it: They filmed a performance that is now used as a training video for pilots and West Point cadets enrolled in engineering psychology and human error courses. Berger and company are still involved with the Air Force, developing other projects. "We had no idea it would be this popular," says Berger. "And we're probably the only theater group with a Defense Department contract."

"CVR" was on the Performing Arts Center lineup last fall, but was postponed after Sept. 11. Organizers didn't feel that they had the right ancillary programs in place. (All performances are followed by an audience "talk-back" with the actors as well as aviation and/or other related experts.)

Berger respected the decision of PAC organizers. But he flew down to Austin nonetheless to meet Robert Helmreich, a psychology professor at the University of Texas who for the past 30 years has been examining team management under stress. Helmreich will be part of the post-show discussion on Thursday.

Berger sees no relation between "CVR" and the terrorists attacks of last fall. "It's really easy to make a connection between 'CVR' and the events of Sept. 11 based on the fact that both involve the use of airplanes. But we've never found that the audiences make the connection. This is a show that trusts its audience completely," he says. " 'CVR' is a drama portraying people dealing with a crisis. And that's the same subject that theater has been dealing with for centuries -- man battling with the out-of-control monster."

jvanryzin@statesman.com; 445-3699