What I liked
See overall impression
What I didn't like
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My overall impression
This show moved me. You might say: it’s about parents of a son lost to the infamous PanAm flight 103 bombing in 1988, how could it not move you? The play is written with craft and consideration, personalizing it. One couple, Americans visiting the Scottish town where the wreckage landed, display the distortions grief can work on a marriage, where the one who chooses to be the “rock” denies himself his true feelings, and the other falls further than she might, in balance. And the townspeople — who ever thought of what they saw? The explosion happened high above, but the wreckage and the bodies landed right where they lived. They too suffer. The grief, the coping, the love of spouse and stranger are all excellently portrayed. There is a touch of welcome comic relief in the person of the play’s villain, the American Ambassador who wants to burn the victims’ clothes and let the world stop thinking about the tragedy, against the wishes of the townswomen. He has his humanity, as does his comic foil, a local woman who cleans his office and snoops on his American business. The performances and the writing are moving (and funny at the right times), and the staging and lighting quite beautiful: you feel yourself on the moors under the stars, searching for your lost loved one…
