So true is the recreation of a final bombing scene in Fly that you for may forget you’re in a theater with actors rather than fliers. It’s the exciting climax to a poignant flashback story by a Tuskegee Airman of a tough path to acceptance and achievements of military African Americans from training to proving themselves as officers and pilots. First, they had to accept each other in brotherhood, despite their different backgrounds and values.
Though the authors have placed in a barracks in WW II four “types” of black recruits, their portrayals rise above stereotyping. Jordan Bellow shows history-loving Chet to be enthusiastic yet reserved in recognition that he’s the youngest of the group.Terrell Wheeler, as Iowan Willis W., represents solid family men. He’s educated, wants to prove blacks are smart enough to fly, and will soon be a first-time father.
From the Caribbean comes Shane Taylor’s enthusiastic, gleaming J. Allen, anxious to show what an immigrant can contribute. He’s heckled (and who isn’t?) by Zoot-suited sharpie Oscar, played by Robert Karma Robinson, as the consummate jivy Dude from big, bad Chicago. You’ll love to hate Greg Brostrom’s smug, racially prejudiced white officer O’Hurley. Sean Patrick Hopkins and Michael Pauley aren’t much better white characters early on, so you’ll be relieved when they transition into fliers who recognize what the Tuskegee airmen have done, and all enter into brotherhood. A special feature of Fly is a Tap Griot, strong Omar Edwards practicing his “Improvography.” Besides playing incidental roles, Edwards in his major one underscores the story but mainly expresses its emotional wallop with his dancing. It’s a combination of scripted choreography with improvised bodily and facial gesture that creates melodic sounds and sometimes comments on the action.
Beowulf Boritt has created the perfect setting, mainly a long room that serves as a barracks and training space. But his real genius is to make the space taper backward into the main part of an airplane, with projections encased in black frames atop and at sides. With Rocco Disanti’s projections framed, scenes within could pass for virtual reality, especially during the battle over Berlin.
For the most part, props are few and well chosen, with trunks accorded each man to signify his place and sometimes personality while in training. Later, only a few chairs downstage seem to hold the airmen in their cockpits, as their powerful acting, along with Xavier Pierce’s lights, appear to arm and then steer them. When the flashback yields all the way up to the present day, there are brief photographic reminders of the Civil Rights Movement and the gains made by African Americans, including one in The White House. Though authentic, they seem tacked on after the startling unfolding of what has gone before.
