It takes us awhile to realize that this is a female Bomber-Squadron story. It takes playwright Jenny Laird awhile, too, but this literary genre is not ordinarily associated with guuurrrls.
Of course, by 1944, women had been admitted—albeit in restricted numbers—to the Civilian Pilot Training Program for five years. But the same war that would inaugurate a measure of home-front support for high-profile racing pilot Jackie Cochran's air-transport team—dubbed the WASPs (for Women Air Force Service Pilots)—would also draw the animosity of the uniformed men prepared to keep their command over the Big Birds exclusive.
Our five would-be Aces are a diverse bunch, if not precisely the cross-section of America more usual to this kind of fable. Mags is a tough cookie from Chicago and Lil, a sweetie from south of the Mason-Dixon. DeLang is a poetry-reading scholar, while Breeny is a midwestern bumpkin. And Bishop knows only that she loves that Wild Blue Yonder, in whose cloudy embrace she holds imaginary conversations with their unit's founder.
After an estrogenic first act steeped in sisterly soap (beauty tips, love letters, movie stars, etc.) laced with the feminist grievances obligatory to founding-mothers docudrama, the plot finally—well, gets off the ground: a lone aviatrix—guess which one—crashes in the desert. Two of her buddies STEAL A PLANE to risk their lives searching for her. They then FORCE the military honchos to ship the body of their fallen comrade home. You GO, ladies!
The sorority assembled by director BJ Jones displays the requisite spunk and sass, with Jen Engstrom's boisterous Mags, Julie Ganey's maternal Lil and Lia Mortensen's swaggering Cmdr. Cochran anchoring lighter-weight but nonetheless sturdy performances by Ana Sferruzza as the bookish DeLang, Paula Stevens as the naive Breeny and Michele Graff as the ascetic Bishop. And if we are bewildered by the text's extensive aeronautical jargon (despite a glossary in the playbill), technical advisor 1st Lt. John A. Clark ascertains that the those speaking it are not. The definitive broads-in-bombers yarn has yet to be written, but even a delayed take-off is a start.