Review: GROUNDED - Worshipping the Sky

Scan through the programme for the Siren production of George Brant's Grounded and you'll find a note warning against the unlawful recording of the performance as actionable under United States copyright. Take the legal advice as dramaturgical incentive and you might question the regulation of imaging: who ultimately has control over what is seen and what isn't?

Brant asks questions of surveillance in this drama about a US airforce pilot (Claire Dunne) who gets her kicks from commando-camaraderie and worshipping the blue sky. After a one-night stand with a gentle stranger she discovers that she is pregnant, effectively grounding her from service. Instead, she's reassigned to fly remote-controlled drones, in other words, reporting to the 'chairforce'.

The transfer can sometimes feel like a tragedy in this rigorous staging by director Selina Cartmell. Davy Cunningham's heavenly rays of azure light coming in from on high over Joe Vanek's sizable landing strip set - its length splitting the Project Upstairs in two - are later exchanged for the hazy grey glimmers of control room monitors.

Dunne is strapped in for the ride, playing her bold-accented pilot with tough exteriors. Her expert maneuvers are met with curious directional decisions. As she constantly rearranges a stack of chairs with the vigour of a military drill, the resulting shapes aren't translatable and are more obvious as a tactic to sustain the staging visually. The production's stylish surfaces are impenetrable to blast through but they're the kind of risks that always have us coming back to Cartmell.

Still, there are unsettling discoveries here about the changing state of warfare and the strange domestication that comes with it, where a bomb can be released with the same easy effort of lifting a fork at the dinner table. Brant's drama suspects that we're moving towards something unnatural, describing the US War on Terror in religious terms. There's a new god-eye that sees us all, and its strapped to a payload.

Grounded runs at Project Arts Centre as part of Tiger Dublin Fringe until 12 Sept. For more information and tickets, see the Fringe website. Photo: Patrick Redmond.

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