Grounded

"Its divisive subject is as current as the front page of today’s New York Times...It’s unassailably dramatic, kinetic and provocative...Writer, director and character merge in a single, indelible unity of vision I won’t soon forget." Full Review

"George Brant's 2011 drama is more than just eerily prescient. Nor is the work merely a flashy vehicle for a glamour-puss movie star and an A-list director. This is a taut, visceral psychological portrait of a rare woman fighter pilot. 'Grounded' spreads the damage around with a precision strike on modern life itself." Full Review

"Onstage alone for 85 minutes, she grabs the audience and takes it on a compelling dramatic journey. Directed by Julie Taymor, the production throbs with movement, background music and flashing projections...A disturbing play brought to vivid life by Hathaway's performance." Full Review

"The play doesn’t provide any easy answers. What it does do is present a highly compelling portrait of a bright woman who comes to the realization that she has become an executioner. 'Grounded' is an expertly crafted work that adds a unique dimension to a very controversial and timely issue." Full Review

"A rare and precious experience: theatre that is both soul searing and core shaking...The play implicitly critiques the military’s use of drones, yet it concentrates on one woman’s existence and the personal toll of deploying destructive power at an alienated distance. "Grounded" weaves a brilliant and visceral story about a woman on the edge of collapse, in a messy, complicated and dangerous world." Full Review

"Taymor makes an impressive shift to something more intimate and psychological...She creates striking images to represent the changing world of the pilot...Brant's intriguing and engaging script doesn't argue policy, but is more fixed on the notion that modern technology is capable of turning soldiers into assassins, if only human conscience wouldn't stand in the way." Full Review

"A real gem...The play trains audiences’ eyes on a slice of life unfamiliar to most people. That makes the show worthwhile; the crisp, smart script makes it even better." Full Review

"The evening is as much a sensory experience as it is a literary one. For all the physical aspects, however, director Taymor boils it all down to a piece about a single, solitary human being whose certainties slowly erode. Fierce, confused, angry, loving, exultant — Hathaway is as multi-colored as the Las Vegas neon that patterns the floor. What's unsaid in 'Grounded' is as potent as what is." Full Review

"This production, unnervingly gorgeous and overwrought, considers the costs of fighting a foreign war from home...The breadth of the design and the intensity of the performance try to widen out the play in ways that don’t always flatter the script, flattening its ambiguities, underscoring symbols that were already obvious. And yet, the conclusion still chills." Full Review

"Mr. Brant’s play draws a nuanced and haunting portrait of a woman serving in the United States Armed Forces...Some baggy or repetitive passages notwithstanding, Mr. Brant’s writing largely remains taut, terse and concentrated on exposing the fissures that open in the heroine’s confidence and sense of honor...'Grounded' has a grimly fresh topicality." Full Review

"The production is effective and often dazzling. It does what it’s supposed to do: take us inside the pilot’s mind. But 'Grounded' skimps on relationships. This character is many things, but not a solo act. The staging lets us know that the pilot is separated from everyone else by technology, but it’s the play that separates her from the audience." Full Review

"Brant provides scant geopolitical context, and arguably this lack of facts helps to reinforce the soullessness of the pilot’s existence, but his writing style is a bit too staccato for my taste — a few developed anecdotes would have helped deepen the story emotionally. But Hathaway’s memorably kinetic performance is noteworthy in itself." Full Review

"The Public Theater’s intimate Anspacher space proves the ideal staging area for Taymor’s arsenal of pyrotechnics...The tricky part for both actor and director is the Pilot’s gradual enlightenment about what it actually means to fly a drone." Full Review

"What Mr. Brant has done is to find the poetry in the rhythms of everyday speech. The strength of Ms. Hathaway’s performance lies in the gauged intensity with which she responds to the poetic aspect of 'Grounded.' But 'Grounded' is smothered in a thick sauce of overelaborate visual and sound effects." Full Review

"Why doesn't this impressive production pack more of an emotional wallop? The technical wizardry and star power expose the limitations of the play...Brant's ending seems melodramatic. And perhaps all the directorial pyrotechnics, while making this production unusually dynamic for a solo show, contribute to a certain detachment from the experience being portrayed." Full Review

"Taymor’s busy, illustrative direction—which surrounds the actress with showy projections and sound effects—adds to the trouble; her staging of the play’s new ending hovers at the edge of kitsch. It’s good to see Hathaway spreading her wings, but the end result doesn’t take flight." Full Review

"it’s my guess I would have liked “Grounded” better in almost any of its other productions...One senses the director is giving us this ride for its own sake...No one would deny that Julie Taymor’s 'Grounded' is visually arresting. But it is also dramatically arrested. Her emphasis on the special effects is distracting and overkill." Full Review