‘Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!’
Critic says Here on the Flight Path is in dire need of assistance
Barb Stewart

Does the world really need another story about a recently divorced man lost outside the world of marriage?

Playwright Norm Foster certainly thinks so, but his Here on the Flight Path does little to support his case.

John is a recently divorced newspaper columnist who lives on the top floor of an apartment building on the flight path (get it?) of the local airport. While John hears surprisingly few planes overhead in our time with him, Foster feels the device has metaphorical significance.

John himself is on his own path of growth, brought to him courtesy of three women who travel in and out of his life via the apartment next door: Faye, the smart, insightful prostitute who teaches John he can be a friend to a woman; Angel, the small-town girl with plenty of moxie who teaches John he can be a supportive father figure; and Gwen, the recently separated driving instructor who teaches John he can be a caring boyfriend.

John is a man’s man. He loves golf and beer and hauling out clichés — such as the one about how all men picture every woman they meet naked whether they find them attractive or not. These ‘insights’ certainly rang true for some if audience laughter was any indication, but these simplistic Garrison Keillor-for-the-everyman gems are not for all tastes.

When John comes out with a line about how a man once said that instead of getting married again he’d rather find a woman he hates and buy her a house, you wonder just what kind of divorce Foster himself might have experienced.

Shortcomings aside, Richard Waugh, as John, and Sharon Bajer, as all three female leads, manage to give these one-dimensional characters credible three-dimensional depth. Waugh makes John a likable guy who charms the audience with playful breakings of the fourth wall, and Bajer expertly draws her three characters into flesh and blood. Both keep it light and draw as many laughs as they can from Foster’s material.

Director Rosemary Dunsmore keeps the play humming along, but with well over an hour before intermission it becomes difficult to hold an audience’s attention with material that is, for all intents and purposes, the makings of a half-hour sitcom.

Despite the limitations of the play itself, Bajer and Waugh make Here on the Flight Path a harmless enough way to spend a couple of hours. The work gives no great insight into humanity, but Foster’s travels may offer a rewarding destination for those unwilling to think too hard about where they’re going.