Theatre / beckie darlington
Preview: Grounded, Arnolfini
She’s a hot-rod F16 fighter pilot. Now, though, she’s pregnant – and her career in the sky is over. Sitting in an air-conditioned trailer in Las Vegas flying remote-controlled drones over the Middle East, our heroine struggles through surreal 12-hour shifts far from the battlefield, hunting terrorists by day and being a wife and mother by night.
Now touring in a critically acclaimed adaptation by London’s Gate Theatre, George Brant’s compulsive new play flies from the heights of lyricism to the shallows of workaday existence – and, in the process, targets our assumptions about war, family, and what it is to be a woman.
“Grounded is one of the finest plays I have ever directed,” enthuses director Christopher Haydon. “It’s an extraordinary, caustic exploration of one of the most important issues of our time, and it packs a multitude of ideas into a single, brilliantly compelling character.
“Since we opened it in Edinburgh in 2013, it has been hugely exciting to see how thousands of people have connected with it, and so I am thrilled at the opportunity to take it on tour and allow it to reach an even wider audience. As a small pub theatre we rarely get the opportunity to share our work as widely as we would like, and this is the perfect way in which to bring the work of the Gate to the rest of the country.”
It’s also the first tour in the 35-year history of Notting Hill’s Gate Theatre (mission statement: to be “a home for anarchic spirits, invigorating theatre, and restless creative ambition”), and follows sell-out runs at both the Gate itself and Edinburgh Festival, as well as a run at Studio Theatre in Washington DC, where The Washington Post labelled it ‘a fireball performance’.
Grounded Wednesday, January 28 to Saturday, January 31, Arnolfini, Bristol. For more info and to book tickets, visit www.bristololdvic.org.uk/eventdetails?webEventId=grounded
Picture: Beckie Darlington and Gate Theatre
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