By Celia Wren | November 19, 2019
It’s a good thing invisible guitars don’t cost real money, or the Keegan Theatre would be racking up thousands of dollars in damage each night.
In the company’s entertaining presentation of Chelsea Marcantel’s play “Airness,” co-produced with 1st Stage, characters infuse their competitive-air-guitar performances with heartfelt exuberance, frequently smashing their imaginary instruments on the floor in a climactic frenzy. The strutting, jumping mock-concert sequences are droll and engrossing. They also help the play reflect on the nature and purpose of art, illustrating the exhilaration that can come from creating something out of nothing.
Under Christina A. Coakley’s direction, able acting draws out the humor, poignancy and warmth of this work, helping the production get past touches of stiffness. Premiered in 2017 at the esteemed Humana Festival of New American Plays, “Airness” tells a heartwarming if ultimately predictable underdog story set in the close-knit world of air guitar, a pastime that involves shredding on an imaginary ax.
In Marcantel’s telling, the air-guitar ethos marries the impish, over-the-top showmanship of professional wrestling with a commitment worthy of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. It’s all new to Nina (Billie Krishawn), a virtuoso of real guitar who plunges into the world of faux-Jimi Hendrixes for personal reasons. Hanging out in dive bars and green rooms, she learns to appreciate the camaraderie and dedication of quirky souls like Golden Thunder (Gary L. Perkins III), who is goofily kinetic onstage and believes that “the whole impetus of air guitar is world peace.”
Adopting the stage name the Nina, our heroine initially tangles with the Cannibal Queen (a wonderfully poised and acerbic Dani Stoller), whose romance with the reigning champion D Vicious (Drew Kopas, acing greasy swagger) does not blind her to the patriarchal bias of air guitar. Providing a more nurturing intro to the culture is Shreddy Eddy (the terrific Harrison Smith), a sweetly zealous channeler of Tom Waits tunes who expounds to Nina on the “six pillars of air guitar”: artistic merit, originality, feeling, technical ability, charisma and “airness.” No surprise which character manifests this last quality — the art form’s holy grail — in the national finals.
The initial moments of “Airness” have a stagy feel. And throughout the show, Chris Stezin is often unpersuasive as Facebender, an older contestant with a flowery speaking style and a glam-rocker wig. Fortunately, Stezin does do justice to a monologue in which Facebender recounts how air guitar alleviated his loneliness and provided existential perspective and psychic release; it’s a speech that lends depth overall.
The deliberately scruffy set, with its bar stools and fading posters, highlights just how far the competitors have to travel in their imaginations to project themselves into a realm of multiplatinum glamour. (Matthew J. Keenan is the set designer; Nitsan Scharf designed the music-video-style projections.) Sydney Moore created the colorful costumes (including a glittery-sneaker look for the Nina), and Kenny Neal devised the sound design, which encompasses snippets of mosh-pit-delighting anthems.
But it’s choreographer Jessica Redish who supplies the show’s crucial aesthetic touches, filling the competitors’ onstage sequences with leaps, sashays, punk tantrums and tango pivots. Watching this joyous physicality, we understand how these oddball characters find fulfillment and catharsis in rockin’ out on nonexistent frets and strings.
Airness by Chelsea Marcantel. Directed by Christina A. Coakley; lighting design, John D. Alexander; properties, Cindy Landrum Jacobs; air guitar consultant, Doug “the Thunder” Stroock; guitar consultant, Jaime Ibacache; assistant director, Evin Howell. With Forrest A. Hainline IV. About 2 hours. Tickets: $41-$51. Through Nov. 30 at the Andrew Keegan Theatre, 1742 Church St. NW. keegantheatre.com or 202-265-3767. Running Dec. 5-29 at 1st Stage, 1524 Spring Hill Rd., Tysons. Tickets: $15-$42. 1stStage.org or 703-854-1856.
