A series of gunshots goes off, a burst of light. Refugees are pulled up off the ground by the sound of helicopters that appear out of nowhere from the ceiling and then-silence. The Barber Theatre is transformed into a war zone, complete with soldiers, rubble and the interior of a destroyed barn. Out of the darkened set emerges Brant Russell, director of ‘The American Pilot.’ The play is the latest effort from Northwestern’s Theatre and Interpretation Center’s Masters-in-the-Making Series.
‘The American Pilot’ tells the story of an American bomber pilot stranded in a war-torn country, but with his iPod as a means of communication. For Russell, this is a golden opportunity to utilize the talents of his set, costume and lighting designers (all fellow masters’ students) to carry out a production that would not have been possible on a smaller scale.
‘Having the play in a smaller theater would be a much different kind of production,’ Russell says of directing on a main stage at NU. ‘All of those technical elements would have been more actor-driven, whereas now they’re more designer-driven.’ Russell, a graduate student, first started directing as an undergraduate. Laughing, Russell says he wasn’t disciplined enough for acting and is a bit of a control-freak, so directing fit. ‘I found a lot of satisfaction from it,’ he says. ‘I can create a little vision of how the world ought to be and see it through to its end.’
The vision for ‘The American Pilot,’ written by David Greig, first came about five years ago. Russell was directing some of Greig’s other work for a small Chicago theatre company and found the script intriguing but not fit for the venue available to him. When Russell was given the opportunity to direct a play of his choice on one of the main stages at NU as part of his masters program, he remembered that same script.
He now sees the play differently since his first read five years ago. Today, he is less focused on Greig’s formal aspects of style and theatricality and more on the play’s deeper meaning and underlying sociopolitical message.
A former political science major, Russell is of the opinion that politics is life, and it would be a waste of time to work on a play devoid of politics. He describes ‘Pilot’ at its core by paraphrasing Thomas Hobbes, another political science enthusiast. ‘The American Pilot’ is nasty, brutish and short, just like man’s state in the state of nature.’
While the play is on the darker side, Russell focuses on the exhilaration of directing. If he were stranded like his play’s bomber pilot, even his iPod playlist would reflect this passion. He cites Otis Redding, Beethoven, Dave Brubek and Bon Iver as likely candidates, but really ‘anything with a heart’.
Ultimately, Russell wants people to see beyond the technical or political aspects of his play. ‘If people walk out of this play saying that the life of a peasant farmer in Afghanistan or the Beylaroos is equally as valuable and nuanced and difficult as their own, I think it will result in a deeper engagement with the world as a whole, and that’s the idea.’ ‘
