GRIEF IN MOTION

Christina Harris keeps Deborah Brevoort’s meditation
on loss moving with remarkable theatrical urgency

(Top) Lacy Blake-Vetter, (bottom) Nicole Erb, Suzanne Voss, Scott Harris

There is very little stillness in The Women of Lockerbie, and that turns out to be one of the great strengths of Christina Harris’s superbly directed production at The Actors’ Gang. Deborah Brevoort’s play takes place seven years after the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, following two stories that gradually converge: Madeline (Libby Baker) and her husband Bill (Scott Harris) have returned from America to Lockerbie, where the grief-stricken mother desperately searches the hills for some remnant of the son she lost; meanwhile, the women of the Scottish town are battling the U.S. government for possession of the victims’ clothing, which they intend to wash and return to the families.

Christina Harris, Luca Nicoletti, Suzanne Voss, Scott Harris, Donna Jo Thorndale, Lacy Blake-Vetter

Lacy Blake-Vetter, Donna Jo Thorndale, Luca Nicoletti, Vanessa Mizzone, Suzanne Voss

Brevoort builds the play on the structure of Greek tragedy, and Harris makes particularly effective use of its chorus. The women rarely seem merely to enter, stand and speak. They gather, separate, cross the space and reform in constantly changing configurations, their individual grief becoming something communal. The almost continuous movement might have overwhelmed such a mournful play; instead, Harris uses it to keep the production remarkably alive. Christina Harris’s Olive leads the women, with Michael Klug as government representative George Jones and Vanessa Mizzone as Hattie among an ensemble that moves with impressive cohesion.

Scott Harris, Michael Klug

The production runs only 70 minutes, considerably shorter than the 105 minutes listed for the published script, yet nothing about it feels rushed or incomplete. Quite the opposite. Having never seen The Women of Lockerbie before, I can’t say what may or may not have been trimmed, but I can say that I didn’t miss it. Harris gives the two intertwined stories room to breathe while refusing to let grief become dramatically static.

Libby Baker

What begins as two very different responses to the same catastrophe eventually becomes one: an American mother trying to recover something of the child she lost and Scottish women insisting that the belongings of the dead should be treated with dignity rather than destroyed. Brevoort’s Greek structure can occasionally announce its symbolism rather loudly, but Harris’s fluid staging and deeply committed ensemble give it flesh and blood. At 70 minutes, this Women of Lockerbie doesn’t feel abbreviated. It feels distilled.

Michael Klug, Vanessa Mizzone, Christina Harris, Lacy Blake-Vetter, Luca Nicoletti, Suzanne Voss, Donna Jo Thorndale

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photos by Nicole Erb

The Women of Lockerbie
The Actors’ Gang in association with Sonder Theatre Company
The Actors’ Gang Theater, 9070 Venice Blvd. in Culver City
Thurs & Sat at 8; Sun at 2
ends on Sept. 27, 2026
for tickets, call 310.838.4264 or visit The Actors’ Gang

for more shows, visit Theatre in LA

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(Top) Scott Harris, Nicole Erb, Suzanne Voss, Donna Jo Thorndale, (bottom) Libby Baker, Christina Harris