Remote control

One-woman show highlights the human cost of drone warfare

By Toni Tresca - July 8, 2024
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Acclaimed local performer and Denver University theater professor Anne Penner stars in Grounded at the Dairy Arts Center, July 11-21. Credit: Susannah McLeod

“I no longer love blue skies,” a 13-year-old Pakistani boy named Zubair told U.S. lawmakers during a congressional briefing in 2013. “In fact, I now prefer gray skies. The drones do not fly when the skies are gray.” Zubair and his sister were injured in a U.S drone strike on North Waziristan that killed their 67-year-old grandmother a year prior. Since remote warfare began its rise to deadly prominence during the Obama administration, stories like theirs have become grim hallmarks of modern conflict.

This unsettling disconnect lies at the heart of George Brant’s Grounded, a one-woman play about the psychological toll drone warfare exacts on its operators. Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company (BETC) is set to revive this poignant production at the Dairy Arts Center this July, starring acclaimed local performer and Denver University theater professor Anne Penner.

“The idea that a pilot could check in at work in a bunker outside of Las Vegas, spend their workday killing people thousands of miles away, then drive home and make dinner for the kids, is an insanely good topic for a play,” says Mark Ragan, managing director of BETC.

Grounded tells the story of an Air Force pilot who is reassigned to drone operations following an unexpected pregnancy. From a bunker outside Las Vegas, she conducts bombing raids halfway across the world, grappling with the mental and emotional strain of remote warfare.

Penner first read the script backstage at the 2017 Colorado Shakespeare Festival.

“I immediately wanted to work on Grounded because, even on the page, it felt visceral and kinesthetic,” Penner says. “It is written in a poetic style and jumps between disparate ideas. The pilot begins the play believing she knows right and wrong. She is one of the good guys, and her work is moral. Then, all of a sudden, the circumstances change, and she finds herself in a literal gray area, staring at a gray screen in a liminal space where she doesn’t know right from wrong.”

First flight

Although Penner knew she wanted to play the character, she was hesitant to take on the project due to the time commitment. But with an abundance of availability in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Penner approached her long-time DU colleague and mentor, Rick Barbour, about collaborating. Barbour says he was “flattered” to be asked to work on the piece and quickly agreed.

The two spent a year working outdoors on Grounded, and Penner produced six performances at DU’s Newman Center in November 2021. Ragan happened to attend one of these shows while working as a critic for the outlet OnStage Colorado. “Penner’s 75-minute tour de force is spine-tingling, fierce and unblinking,” he raved in his review.

While Penner was proud of the work, “I didn’t feel done.” So, in 2023, she approached Ragan and Jessica Robblee, who had taken over BETC as managing and artistic directors last July, to remount the play. Ragan remembered Penner’s performance fondly and jumped at the chance to share Grounded with a larger audience.

“When I saw it during the pandemic, there were barely any people in the theater — everyone was still afraid to venture out of their homes,” Ragan says. “I thought it needed more exposure. The pandemic robbed Anne of what could have been a far greater audience. Also, our BETC patrons are very cerebral; they are steeped in knowledge of current events and history and not scared away by tough subjects.”

Landing at the Dairy

As they prepare for opening night, Penner and Barbour are focused on fine-tuning the minimalist staging that captivated audiences in 2021. Barbour says the simplicity of featuring Penner and a single chair allows the emotional weight of the story to shine through.

“To do theater, all you need is an actor and someone watching,” Barbour says. “I’m not saying you shouldn’t have other technical elements, but you don’t need anything else. Going into this, I knew it was pretty much going to be Anne and a chair. We’ve found a strong, simple but elegant way to use the theater’s geometry to reveal what’s happening in the play.”

Several members of the original design team are returning for this production. Lighting designer Shannon McKinney and sound designer Jason Ducat will once again enhance the atmosphere, while Naila Martinez’s intricate floor painting will complement the simple scenic design.

“Anne is the main storytelling ingredient, but it is supported subtly by our design team,” Barbour says. “For me, the beauty of Grounded stems from the same dynamics as any great play or tragedy: a single human being with all of their pluses, minuses, hypocrisies and strengths combined with a situation that tests them. This play, like any great work of literature, has a moral center that causes us to reflect on the situation and consider what we would do.”

As drone strikes continue to make headlines in conflicts ranging from Gaza to Ukraine, the decision to remount Grounded offers a timely commentary on the human cost of remote warfare.

“George Brant created this play by looking at a photograph, so it is not strictly biographical, but it is based on true military experiences,” Penner says. “The pilot is struggling to strike a balance between being there for her family and doing her extremely violent job. I am in a much lower-stakes situation, but I understand the feeling of trying to balance family and work. Her morals are tested but she comes out stronger for it, and I believe we have all had similar experiences — maybe not this literal, specific one at war, but it’s a very human experience.”

ON STAGE: Grounded. July 11-21, the Dairy Arts Center, 2590 Walnut St., Boulder. $17-$47

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