Copy of The New York Times review. April 25, 1998.

 

April 25, 1998

'Tracon': Air-Traffic Trauma

By PETER MARKS

EW YORK -- Uh-oh. There is a heap of trouble in the control room. Hank is hitting the vodka bottle pretty heavy, Gus is freaking out over the crummy headsets and Billy, the autistic guy hired by the big boys because he's so good at geometry, is in meltdown because his blue Bic ballpoint has run dry.

That's not to mention the stack of jumbos jostling one another over La Guardia like Spice Girls fans rushing the box office at the Garden.

What's the Federal Aviation Administration to do?

Well, in "Tracon," Filippo Anselmi's breathless two-hour infiltration of the FAA's regional air traffic control building on Long Island, the solution is eminently bureaucratic: send in a suit to file a report.

What the trouble-shooter finds, of course, should put the fear of flying in anyone holding a ticket in rows one to 75: The air traffic control system is one huge, frayed nerve. There are too many planes to handle and too few controllers to take them in. Near-misses are practically as common in the skies as packets of honey-roasted peanuts, and the people with the terrifying responsibility of managing the chaos exhibit the emotional maturity of the cast of "Rugrats."

"Tracon," short for Terminal Radar Approach Control, the name given to the control building, is a cross between journalistic expose and television drama; think of the bridge of the USS Enterprise, stranded in a concrete bunker off the Long Island Expressway. Every character has a story, and Hank's is the most harrowing. Played with admirable energy by David Burke, he's the hotshot among the controllers, but his wife has left him and he takes nips between routing suggestions for Air France pilots.

"So I had a few -- big deal!" he says, sneering at his boss. (Oh dear, don't let the folks on that Air France jetliner hear him.)

"Tracon," with vivid snippets of dialogue, has the air of a well-made re-enactment; the play deserves a more polished production than the one by the Basic Theater, of which Anselmi is one of the founders. David Millman's overly casual staging attempts to pick up on the rhythms of life in the bunker, but the actors frequently stumble over the lines and leave awkward pauses in their conversations. The production, too, could use some kind of thermostat. Fevers run so high in "Tracon" you wonder how any plane reaches the tarmac intact.

The play closed last week.

PRODUCTION NOTES:

'TRACON'

Story by Filippo Anselmi; script by Anselmi and David Millman; directed by Millman; sets by Peter King; lighting by Mark Schuyler; sound by Dave Brewster. Presented by the Basic Theater of New York City. At Arclight Theater.

With: Filippo Anselmi (Jerry), Bruno Iannone (Gus), Jim Sterling (Bob), Michael Griffiths (Tom), Jack Scott (Billy), David Burke (Hank), John-Anthony Cavanagh (Don), Jessica Tregerman (Girl), Ray Trail (Man) and Steve Rhindress and Julius Bremer (Controllers).