"The Common Air:"
Alex Lyras Takes Flight


“The Common Air,” the riveting one-man show starring Alex Lyras, is a sensory delight—much like Walt Whitman’s mystical collection of poetry, “Leaves of Grass,” from which it derives its name. The production had two successful showcases in Los Angeles before debuting in New York last November at The Bleeker Street Theatre (45 Bleeker Street in Manhattan) where it has just received an extended run through February.

By Katerina Georgiou

Co-written by Lyras and director Robert McCaskill, the play has Lyras portraying six characters interconnected by a shared fate: a delay at JFK airport due to a terrorist scare. Each one represents an archetype in all of us: the Driver, the Art Dealer, the Lawyer, the Musician, the Philosopher and finally, the Expatriate who longs for home. All are fascinating and depicted with intelligence, humor and intensity by Lyras.

“The Common Air” reminds us that it’s during life’s pauses, which are often fear-induced, that we can more closely observe the different roles we're playing. And it's our longing to reconcile the disparate parts of our selfhood into a unified whole that drives the search for our own personal truth. But finding out who we are is disorienting at first, so we have to work backwards, like the prodigal son, to find our way back home—to our real self. “Loss of perspective is an interesting place to be,” Lyras said by phone from Los Angeles where he’s based. “You’re in between destinations.”

Few settings are more ideal to illustrate the play’s premise than an airport. Before we take "flight" we need time to assess where we are in the present moment.

“This is my third solo show,” said Lyras. “I have a lot to say in terms of social critique, and I like to make fun of things. I’ve been stranded in the airport so I’ve had my ear talked off. I think it was important to have some realism...why people go into these personal stories.”

One of the play’s characters provides the answer: the airport is a theater.

This is especially true these days with the not so uncommon threat of violence looming over our heads. While the nameless characters are familiar ones in the post 9/11 world, the stereotypes end there, thanks to the writers’ adept characterization and sensitivity for the complexities of life in the dual worlds of existence—body and soul.

Lyras and MacCaskill spent eight months in 2007 writing the play. The result is a series of well-crafted monologues exploring the many ways in which people attempt to discover their true identity—either by lying to themselves or having the courage to face the truth. Both routes are a bumpy but often comical ride because as the play’s clever subtitle suggests: “Everyone travels with baggage.”

Growing up in Scarsdale, NY, Lyras’ fondness for storytelling was fostered by his parents, who introduced him to the theater and opera in nearby Manhattan. The son of a lawyer and chef, he studied philosophy at Bucknell University before heading to Chicago to study law in the early ‘90’s.

This proved a fateful decision that shifted the course of his life. Down the street from his law school was Second City, the famous improvisation theatre. Sitting in the audience, Lyras understood the law was not his calling. He returned to New York and attended Chicago City Limits, the satellite improv school of Second City. That’s where he met and began a long creative collaboration with his acting teacher, McCaskill—who counts Bernadette Peters, Michelle Rodriguez and Montel Williams as clients he coaches. A year later, Lyras was well on his way to a career in the theater.

But his brief stint in law wasn’t in vain, as is clear from his dizzyingly authentic portrayal of the hard drinking but amusingly lucid lawyer. “Everyone is a character,” said Lyras. “Real life...that’s what every writer draws from.”

This includes his inspiration for the dancing Iraqi cab driver—a role that allows Lyras to demonstrate his remarkable range and ear for accents. “I met the cab driver,” said Lyras. “We were going through Times Square to a club. That guy was over-the-top enthusiastic that we were all going dancing. He told us he was a professional and began to do a jig in his seat. He had a jamming Middle Eastern tape playing in his taxi and that tape is playing in the show.”

By the show’s conclusion, we realize that we are at once—the Driver and the Art Dealer, the Lawyer and the Musician, the Philosopher and the Expatriate—all parts of our selfhood. And each unique experience underscores the human responsibility for caring about the world we create. Whether or not we treat it as a gift bequeathed to us by the universe is a matter of choice. Because as “The Common Air” so eloquently illustrates, despite the many roles we play in life, it’s the air we breathe that unites us to a higher force—and allows us to manifest our own realities.

Performances of “The Common Air” take place on Friday evenings at 8pm through February 26th.

For more information, please see: www.thecommonair.com

©2010 NEOCORP MEDIA

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