Alexis Scott stars in one-woman show at The Gladstone

By Matt Yuyitung

Ottawa’s own Bear and Co. is putting on a production of U.S. playwright George Brant’s Grounded at The Gladstone. The one-woman show, which runs Jan. 18-27 at the Little Italy theatre, will star local actor Alexis Scott as The Pilot.

The play follows a fighter pilot who is forced out of flying due to pregnancy. She then takes on a role as a drone pilot, and she is forced to reconcile the tensions between her military duties and her family life. Her role as a drone pilot takes a large toll on her mental state, and puts heavy strain on her professional and personal life.

“It’s an amazingly powerful show,” Ottawa-based director Eleanor Crowder said. “It’s an incredibly hard-hitting and sweet show at the same time in that it brings you inside the fighter pilot to the extent that you utterly empathize with her.”

The play features themes such as drone warfare, trauma, and constant surveillance, and uses them to paint a picture of modern warfare, one in which fighters are thousands of miles away from war zones.

To prepare, Scott learned about the experiences of other drone pilots, particularly those who have been traumatized through their use of weaponized drones.

“Not every drone pilot gets PTSD, but there are many that have, and just watching that hit me really hard,” she said.

This gets reflected in the play, as The Pilot experiences significant mental trauma as a drone operator.

“She’s deeply traumatized by what happens, and we see that happen,” Crowder said. “We see the military persona, the front she keeps, and it lasts a long time . . . She doesn’t crack for a really long time.”

The play also focuses heavily on the humanity of those wrapped up in conflict, and this is a large factor behind The Pilot’s mental deterioration.

“(The Pilot) starts to see (the enemy) as human, as exactly the same kind of humans operating under the same set of stresses,” Crowder said.

Another important theme for Crowder and Scott was the treatment of soldiers affected by trauma.

“One thing we can do in Canada is stop treating soldiers like machines,” Crowder said. “The more everybody knows the effects of that kind of work on people, the more impetus there is to dismantle that way of working.”

Crowder noted there’s a significant number of people entering the military who enter the military “without many options.”

“We don’t treat people without many options in an honourable way at all,” she said. “Not in Canada, not in the States.”

Crowder also emphasized the theme of “the eye in the sky,” and the notion that modern military technology is capable of tracking anyone in the world at any time.

“Yes we’re here (in Canada) and safe, but our safety depends on that kind of surveillance, and how do we feel about that?” she said.

In the end, Crowder and Scott say the play will always hold some kind of relevance as long as there’s instability in the world, highlighting events such as the ongoing protests in Iran, the Arab Spring, and the Israel-Palestine conflict as recent examples.

Scott’s first job out of theatre school was also with Bear and Co. when she played Adriana in Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors. She was Crowder’s primary choice for the main role in Grounded.

“I saw a match between Alexis and the script, and thought she’d be brilliant at it,” Crowder said.

Added Scott: “I read it and I had this visceral reaction to the play and I was like, ‘I have to do this.’ ”

Bear and Co. was founded in 2012 by five partners. The company’s first production was John Ford’s Tis Pity She’s a Whore. Bear and Co. stages a mix of classics, Shakespeare, contemporary theatre and musicals.

According to company core member Rachel Eugster, the company’s guiding principle is “compelling theatre, close to home.”

“I think we feel that if we find it compelling and meaningful, then our audience will, as well,” she said. “We like the breadth of that guiding principle because it allows us to do theatre that interests us.”

“So if we choose something that we find has meaning, speaks to us, and speaks to our audience, then that’s a worthy project for Bear,” she said.