INTERVIEW: ‘Bonnie’s Last Flight’ ready to take off
Photo: Bonnie’s Last Flight is the new play by Eliza Bent, who also stars as Mark Twain. Photo courtesy of Toby Tenenbaum / Provided by Everyman Agency with permission.
Bonnie’s Last Flight, the new play by Eliza Bent, imagines a set of passengers and workers on an airplane through three parts of the sky-high experience: takeoff, cruising altitude and landing. In the show, Jan is taking her last flight before retiring as a flight attendant, but she worries what her life will be like after charting so many miles in the sky.
There’s also a new flight attendant with a dark past, a captain who drinks too many alcoholic drinks and even Mark Twain (played by Bent herself). The playwright has crafted a comedic show that utilizes the unique surroundings to offer commentary on life, love and changes.
Tony nominee Barbara Walsh stars, alongside Ceci Fernandez, Federico Rodriguez, Greig Sargeant and Sam Breslin Wright. Annie Tippe directs the limited engagement.
Bonnie’s Last Flight will play the Fourth Street Theatre in New York City as part of Next Door at New York Theatre Workshop. Performances run Feb. 8 to March 2.
Recently Hollywood Soapbox exchanged emails with Bent about the new show. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
What inspired Bonnie’s Last Flight?
I have always been fascinated by air travel and the liminal head space one enters into when floating beside and above clouds. Planes provide bad movies, stale pretzels, endless inspiration and a chance to contemplate your mortality. They are certainly the most philosophical (if at times stressful!) mode of transit.
In fact, when I was in third grade my best friend’s dad took us to Logan Airport in Boston to see the very first Virgin Atlantic flight take off. My friend Billy and I were obsessed with airlines. We would call up their toll free 800 numbers after school and request time tables and route maps from the kind phone agents. As a result, we each had a large collection of brochures, stickers and wings from KLM, Quantus, Japan Air. It was a friendly competition to see who could obtain a route map from a far-flung airline, and it was always very thrilling to receive mail and then compare notes with each other.
A few years ago, I worked on a show called Toilet Fire, and, in that play, there was a chatty flight attendant who’d been around the globe and seen it all. It felt like this character, Jan, who I named in honor of a family friend who worked for Delta, needed her own show along with a whole flight deck.
As Bonnie’s Last Flight took shape it became evident that Mark Twain was also lurking on the plane as a kind of ‘agent of chaos.’ I love to cast myself as characters whom I wouldn’t normally get to play, so I’ll be performing as Mark Twain.
When writing, when do you know a line is funny? Do you need to wait and see how the audience will react?
I usually have a sense of what’s funny when writing, but actors always elevate my text.And directors do marvels at shaping and sculpting these moments into great beats. Nevertheless, the audience is king when it comes to knowing what actually works as laugh-out-loud funny. Luckily, over the course of developing Bonnie’s Last Flight, we’ve done four readings and a design workshop, so we’ve had plenty of chances to test a lot of material out on our passengers — er — audiences.
Although there are a lot of laughs, do you believe there are some important themes in the play that will strike a chord with the audience? Fear of retirement, perhaps?
Yes, I think the audience will engage with such themes as regret, the aging process, dream deferred and what it means to live your best life.
On a personal note, Bonnie’s Last Flight marks my self-imposed retirement from self-producing. It’s a bittersweet send off a swan song for the friendly skies.
When did you first fall in love with theater?
I recall my older sister playing a miserly king in a production of Robin Hood when I was quite young, 3 or 4 years old. She was completely transformed — it was as though she was closer to her truer self on stage as a rascally king than in real life. It was riveting; I was hooked.
How difficult is it to get new work produced in the highly competitive New York theater scene?
On a scale of 1 to 10, self-producing a play is about a 20. And Bonnie’s Last Flight with its large cast; imposing set; and tiered ticketing for first class, comfort plus and economy coach passengers is nothing short of a doozy. My co-producers are heroes, and I am so glad this play is my own retirement flight.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Bonnie’s Last Flight by Eliza Bent begins Feb. 8 at the Fourth Street Theatre in New York City as part of the Next Door at New York Theatre Workshop series. Click here for more information and tickets.
