Virginian-Pilot: Virginia Stage Company's "Grounded" is one-woman show that's not a one-woman show
BY YANA SAMBERG
CORRESPONDENT
PHOTOS BY VICKI CRONIS-NOHE & SAMUEL FLINT
3/3/16


Kate MacCluggageβs debut at the Virginia Stage Company is a solo performance that recasts the concept of a cast.
βGroundedβ is a one-woman play, yet MacCluggage will interact with at least a half-dozen folks; itβs just that they will be offstage controlling the lighting, sound and other factors that will help tell the story and give it depth.
In total, about 50 people are part of the process of putting the play on stage, said Brad Tuggle, VSCβs marketing director.
The audience is watching one actress, but the people back stage running the technical and costuming aspects shape how that performer is perceived.
βGreat lighting can give me more freedom on stage or it can put me in a box,β MacCluggage said. βIt can give a feeling of being sick or really awake.β
The combination of projection, sound and light used in βGroundedβ helps bring the audience to the different locales throughout the story, director Laley Lippard said.
βThroughout the performance she is in conversation with sound, she dances with the light,β Lippard said.
βSheβ is an unnamed Air Force pilot who narrates her journey from ace fighter to mother to drone pilot. Marriage and an unexpected pregnancy force her from the sky, and upon return from maternity leave, she pilots drones from a windowless trailer in the Nevada desert. Each day she hunts terrorists and each night returns to raise a family.
The play deals with universal experiences: What it means to be a modern warrior. How technology changes the way people interact with the world, including the way we wage war. How career and family life can form an uneasy mix, especially a career in the military.
MacCluggage said her character is truly multidimensional. βItβs not just about being a woman,β she said. βThe story is the heartbeat of a well-written play and (a well-developed) character is the way to push the story forward.β
βGroundedβ won the National New Play Networkβs 2012 Smith Prize, which honors a new play on American politics, and picked up a Fringe First award at the 2013 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
βThis is a modern war poem a la Homer,β Lippard said. βThis is the purest form of theater that we know. Itβs a clear, personal story that illuminates greater truths.β