Playwright: Terence Rattigan. At: Griffin Theatre Company at Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont Ave. Tickets: 773-975-8150 or www.griffintheatre.com; $32. Runs through: Feb. 24
The late gay British playwright Sir Terence Rattigan (The Winslow Boy, The Deep Blue Sea) and his "well-made plays" were frequently written off as old fashioned and too conventional. But after several of Rattigan's lesser-known plays were revived in 2011 in honor of his centenary, many British critics re-evaluated their opinions and heralded the works' solid construction and emotional pulse.
One Rattigan play that got a chance to shine anew was his hit 1942 World War II drama Flare Path, focusing on Royal Air Force bomber squad airmen and their wives. A starry 2011 revival of Flare Path at London's Theatre Royal, Haymarket was showered with praise, and Chicago's Griffin Theatre Company altered its 2012-13 season to include this Rattigan rarity.
On one level, Flare Path is pure propaganda, stressing the importance of a nation pulling together to fight a common foe and to put personal matters aside. This is played out in the low-stakes love triangle between the actress Patricia Warren (Darci Nalepa); her husband, Lt. Teddy Graham (Joey deBettencourt); and her former lover, a British-born Hollywood star Peter Kyle (Paul Dunckel).
The play is set in 1940 at the Falcon Hotel in Lincolnshire in eastern England, which is conveniently located next to the airbase for visiting wives. Rattigan drew from his own experience serving in the RAF for the drama, even including a Polish pilot called Count Skriczevinsky (Gabe Franken), who has married a cockney barmaid named Doris (Vanessa Greenway).
A sense of dread pervades the play, despite the forced "Keep Calm and Carry On" British reserve that many of the characters do their best to maintain. Yet on many touching occasions, the ever-present fear of death and loss cracks through to shake the characters' souls.
Yet there is also plenty of humor, too, be it from the acerbic landlady Mrs. Oakes (a masterful Mary Poole), the overeager barkeep Percy (Daniel Desmarais), or the husband-wife sparring between Sgt. Dusty Miller (Dylan Stuckey) and Maudie (Lauren Pizzi).
Director Robin Witt does a fine job marshalling the strong cast together, though I would have liked a touch more emotion in key scenes like when Doris needs to get a letter from her presumed-dead husband translated for her.
The production values are all top-notch, particularly Joe Schermoly's handsome lobby set, Izumi Inaba's period costumes and Christian Gero's sound design that features thunderous airplane effects overhead.
So even if Flare Path is a traditionally conventional drama that shows its age at times, it's still a work that sweeps you up into the characters' life-and-death decisions and feelings of duty for their country. Rattigan clearly knew what he was doing with Flare Path, and his personal military experience shines through.