Broadway Theater Review: Airline Highway

A Group of Airline Highway Characters That Never Take Flight
By Lauren Yarger
A group of down-on-their-luck people gather for the funeral of a close friend in Manhattan Theatre Club’s presentation of Steppenwolf’s Airline Highway, but before it’s all over, we kind of wish the funeral were for us so we don't have to attend.

Lisa D’Amour’s play is just downright depressing and features characters we just can’t warm up to – perhaps because there are so many misfits, we never really get a chance to know them very well. They are a bunch a sad, hopeless folks whom we wish we could help, but we don't know them well enough to want to insert ourselves into the depressing environment.

There’s stripper Krista (Caroline Neff) who isn’t happy that her ex, Bait Boy (Joe Tippett), has returned for the funeral, dragging along his stepdaughter, Zoe (Carolyn Braver), who is doing a school paper on subcultures, like theirs at the Hummingbird Motel on Airline Highway in New Orleans.

Wayne (Scott Jaeck) is the super in the rundown place (designed by Scott Pask), that’s also home to Sissy NaNa (K. Todd Freeman), an orange-haired crossdresser, Francis (Ken Marks), an older biker type who has a thing for Krista, Terry (Tim Edward Rhoze), a guy who tries to earn a few bucks fixing things up for Wayne, and Tanya (Julie White), an aging prostitute, among others, including a tenant who frightens her and who is disliked by the others, but we don’t know why.

The funeral isn’t your typical funeral, however. It’s being held at the request of a very much alive Miss Ruby (Judith Roberts) who is dying, but who wants to hear her friends' eulogies while she still can. The friends decorate and plan the funeral program while reconnecting with Bait Boy, who left the squalor at the Hummingbird behind to make a new life with Zoe’s well-off mother.

Attraction between him and Krista rekindles, however, but she is embarrassed about her current circumstances – she doesn’t even have a room at motel because Wayne threw her out when she got behind on the rent.

At intermission, the woman behind me consoled her companion: “Shows like this start slow, but then they get better. They’ll have the party…..”

It doesn’t really get better. We just have a bunch of misfits who appear to have made poor choices, most of whom aren’t very likable, talking over each other. Krista, on the other hand, shouts all of her lines as directed by Joe Mantello. The characters are all uninteresting stereotypes except for Tanya. We discover a little more about her (and White has been nominated for awards).

She has three kids who she has given up. So I would have liked to know more about her and how she came to become a prostitute, why she decided to keep the children and give them up rather than have abortions and who the fathers were. Does she know? Will she decide to allow contact from the one daughter searching for her birth mother?

How did Bait Boy land a good life on the other side of the tracks and why would he go so long for the name of Bait Boy?

D'Amour never lets us find out. Storytelling gets lost in the clutter, which is disappointing, because I know she’s capable of thought-provoking characters ad themes, like those in Detroit, which I enjoyed very much. When Miss Ruby gives a long discourse on life, the script goes further off track. The message seems to be explore your sexuality, everyone matters and should be loved unconditionally. Unfortunately, we don't know or like these characters enough to comply.

Airline Runway has announced an early closing on June 7. It plays at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, 261 West 47th St., NYC. Performances times vary. Tickets are $67 – $130: http://www.manhattantheatreclub.com.

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