Fear of Flight, Fear of FrightArtistic Fraud of Newfoundland and Eight "Trans-Canadian" Playwrights Touch Down at Factory Theatre Barry Freeman (bio) and Robin C. Whittaker (bio) Fear of Flight by Artistic Fraud of Newfoundland. Created by Jillian Keiley (director), Robert Chafe (script) and Jonathan Monro (composer). Produced by Artistic Fraud of Newfoundland in association with Die in Debt and Cahoots Theatre Projects. Written by Robert Chafe with writing contributions by Denise Clark, Bernie Stapleton, Marie Clements, Daniel MacIvor, Bryden MacDonald, Judith Thompson, David Yee, and Guillermo Verdecchia. Factory Theatre's Performance Spring Festival, Toronto, 13–17 May 2009. Previously developed by the company "in residency" with students of Corner Brook's Sir Wilfred Grenfell College in 2005. It officially premiered at LSPU Hall in St John's in April/May 2008. The present production was also presented at the Magnetic North Theatre Festival in Ottawa, June 2009 and as part of the Vancouver Cultural Olympiad in February 2010. We habitually take for granted machine-aided human flight. We trust, or believe, that an array of phenomena—natural and man-made—can vault us into the sky, fly, and land us back down, though most of us understand little about how any of it works. Flying (under someone else's control) is an act of near-spiritual faith. That act of faith is the theme of Fear of Flight, the latest category-defying spectacle from Artistic Fraud of Newfoundland. We attended its Toronto incarnation in the spring of 2009 at Factory Theatre (as part of the "Performance Spring Festival"). Set aboard a plane en route from St. John's to Vancouver, Fear of Flight's cast of fourteen—twelve passengers and two attendants—slowly unfold their stories as the fear of flying dredges up a range of other private fears. For some, the fear is malignant, for others it is barely perceptible, and for others it is paralyzing. Over the course of the flight, aerophobia develops into a metaphor for our reluctance to take chances even when our feet are firmly planted on the ground. Regular readers of CTR will be familiar with the core collaboration at the heart of Artistic Fraud— the collaboration between director Jillian Keiley and playwright Robert Chafe—and familiar also with "kaleidography," the method by which Keiley choreographs stage gesture and movement with the mathematical precision of a musical score (see Lynde; Keiley and Chafe; Keiley). In Fear of Flight (as in several of the company's previous productions), the kaleidography is structured around an actual musical score forming a complex choral soundscape created here by collaborating actor-musician Jonathan Monro. Adding another dimension to the collaboration, the company based Fear of Flight on monologues solicited from eight of Canada's most acclaimed contemporary playwrights. According to its YouTube promotional video, the company invited each playwright "to muse on fear of flying and fear of life" (1:31). The eight monologues they solicited form the basis of eight characters, with connecting dialogue and additional characters supplied by Robert Chafe. "Fear of life" surfaces within the characters as a fear of each other and of oneself. At the outset of the piece, Denise Clark's "Dennis" (played by Monro) states that he wants to "let [his] personality show through." Later someone proclaims, [End Page 88] "People afraid of these things? It's a waste. They're wasting their precious reprieve from the really scary stuff. The stuff they left behind when they boarded. The stuff waiting for them at baggage claim." Yet the situation of disparate characters breathing, sleeping, reading and typing in such close quarters creates symbiotic relationships. There is the need to stand, to shift a leg over, or to recline, just as when, say, one is sitting in a theatre audience. These are the physical needs of the quiet, trapped spectator. But belief and fear are considerably stronger when one is being moved above the clouds where there are psychological needs too, such as the need to stifle blurting out your deepest fears to the passenger beside you. Shared needs create harmony between the chorus of passengers and attendants on board. Keiley describes what she does as "choral theatre," (99) and indeed...