Compared to "Fosse," a quintessential big Broadway production, "CVR" is somewhere close to the other end of the dramatic spectrum. It's certainly a significant event in the contemporary drama scene.
Where the one is all about entertainment; the other is a remarkable (though unique is an overused word, it may be appropriate here) theater experience delivered in one intense, content-packed, 75-minute act. The tension on stage spills over into every seat in the cozy old barrack-style Suzunari Theater in Shimokitazawa. It's as if the whole place has become an airplane, with everyone present on board; the audience become powerless passengers; the fates of all played out on stage, which doubles as the cockpit.
Which is precisely the desired effect. CVR is the international code for "cockpit voice recorder," and "CVR" re-creates six actual airplane disasters from the records on their CVRs. Like many of the best ideas it is a simple one, which premiered in the fall of 1999 at the 50-seat off-off-Broadway Collective: Unconscious theater on New York's Lower East Side. A stronghold of young, promising American dramatists and artists, Collective: Unconscious is a company focused on experimenting with ideas and searching out new possibilities for the performing arts.