Comedy reigns in ‘Airness’ — Review | Louisville Courier-Journal

by Elizabeth Kramer , @arts_bureau | Published March 29, 2017

The venue — shabby and dimly lit — could be any bar in America. They are in Staten Island, San Diego, Boston.

And in each, there are the characters in Chelsea Marcantel’s new play “Airness” who take the stage as competitors working to qualify for the United States Air Guitar Championships.

In “Airness,” which opened Sunday in the intimate Victor Jory Theatre at Actors Theatre of Louisville as part of the Humana Festival of New American Plays, Nina (Marinda Anderson) first finds this motley crowd, who all go by their stage names, in a Staten Island bar as she seeks to compete in the world of air guitar championships.

This, of course, is the kind of performance usually reserved for the privacy of one’s bedroom – when no one else is around – the music playing loud and one pretends to play guitar. But in the world of air guitar – this is serious pretend.

Sheddy Eddy, Golden Thunder and Facebender make up the core of the group in this comedy that tries to show Nina how letting go of her inhibitions and tapping into the root emotions of a song can help a person find one’s tribe. Golden Thunder even professes that the basics of air guitar promotes world peace.

Even in the beginning moments, Facebender declares that air guitar is a community built upon camaraderie and not competition.

The eccentric yet heartfelt characters, the physical antics, a good dose of rock music and the feel-good story — with some romantic heartbreak — make for great fun in this play under the direction of Meredith McDonough.

Soon after Nina tells them she wants to break into the air guitar world, they take her in warmly — like she’s a new puppy. They describe the judging criteria for each performance: technical merit, stage presence, and, finally, airness, a difficult-to-define quality but one that raises an air-guitar performance to an art form.

But while they are easy to accept her, Nina has her doubts about air guitar. At times, she unintentionally reveals this to her new cohorts — and they are visibly wounded. The social fabric that is woven and becomes frayed so easily makes this play tug at the heartstrings along with the quirky characters.

“Shreddy Eddy,” his real name Ed Leary is played by Nate Miller — who also appeared at Actors as Mercutio in of “Romeo and Juliet,” Austin in “True West” and Tim in last year’s Humana Festival play “This Random World.” Eddy is constantly moving but always able to focus. When Nina has screwed up and comes to him to ask what she has done wrong, he gives her straight answers with a strong shot of wit. Miller as Eddy even plays with wit as an air guitarist. Eddy’s choice — The Ramones.

“Golden Thunder” is the stage name of Gabe Partridge (Marc Pierre), who plays a small role on the road in Nina’s development as the crew goes to various competitions, but he can sure play a mean air guitar to a Michael Jackson medley.

Then there is Mark “Facebender” Lender (Lucas Papaelias) who wears a long blond wig, a brown, suede vest and other ‘70s accouterments. Papaelias embodies the sensitivities of Facebender and he seizes his character’s wonderful onstage eccentricities when he performs. Facebender also speaks using formal and ornate language, but no one except Nina bats an eye. Of course, his signature song is one by Lynyrd Skynyrd — but a crisis of confidence causes him to change that.

Other competitors include Astrid “Cannibal Queen” Anderson (Angelina Impellizzeri), who portrays a hard-rock persona and has immersed herself in this world in part to distract her from a loveless marriage in her upper-class world.

In the background is David “D Vicious” Cooper (Brian Quijada), the previous year’s national champion — his song was “Crazy Train” — who is now doing soda commercials. D Vicious is often absent from the dingy bars, which spurs the group to mention he has become too big to offer support for them any longer. His part in Marcantel’s story represents that point when the commercial world penetrates art, style or any trend and destabilizes a close-knit status quo.

Despite the looming threat D Vicious represents, Quijada’s performance is sweet and flirty in all the adolescent and fun ways that popular music expresses. The guy has a smile that lights up a room as he dances and grinds when he plays his air guitar.

Anderson as Nina tiptoes through a field of emotional landmines — both her own and her competitors — as they all try to qualify for the national championship. She must deal with her own past, her own inhibitions and how she judges others.

But even at the curtain call, there is icing added to the cake of this production with Matt “Airistotle” Burns. While his role as the announcer is solid but sparse throughout the play, the real treat comes when this 2016 World Air Guitar Champion and four-time reigning U.S Air Guitar Champion shows some true airness and performs at the curtain call. Where his fellow actors’ performances have turned the volume to an 8 or 9 — Burns can turn it up to 11.

Production Photos of AIRNESS at ATL (all photos by Bill Brymer)

The production of Chelsea Marcantel’s new play “Airness” continues through April 9 as part of Actors Theatre of Louisville’s 41st Humana Festival of New American Plays. Performances are in the Victor Jory Theatre at Actors Theatre of Louisville, 316 W. Main St. For more information, call 502-584-1205 or visit actorstheatre.org.

Reach reporter Elizabeth Kramer at 502-582-4682 and ekramer@courier-journal.com. Follow her on Twitter @arts_bureau and on Facebook at Elizabeth Kramer – Arts Writer.

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