BASEMENT at the Gene Frankel Theater -Tuskagee Flyer is Harbored by a French Woman in WWII

Michael Hagins is an Amer playwright & director & founder of C.A.G.E. which presents classics and contemporary plays ("Hit and Miss" & "Hamlet").  BASEMENT now playing at the Gene Frankel in SoHO is a WWII melodrama, love story between a Tuskagee Airman, Lt. Michael Crawler (Anthony Goss)  and a French woman, Katrine (Alexandra Cohler) who rescues him when his plane crashes near her rural home in Nazi occupied Normandy June 1944.   Katrine & Michael maneuver in spotty English & French to communicate during Michael's extended convalescence from his injuries under her auspicious care.  The One Act play runs over 1 1/2 hours is staged in the basement of Katrine's home.  The set & lighting manage to convey Michael's confinement.  Matthew White (Ian Campbell) is a war correspondent for the radio who is staged above and behind the audience.  White gives an encouraging update on the allied advances from June-Aug 1944.  Hagins ambitious play tackles the horrors of war, the discrimination blacks face in the states and a blossoming romance between the Amer soldier & his French female savior. The admirable intent of Hagins plays of overcoming bigotry & evil somehow gets lost in translation.  The charming language barrier they both work to overcome loses its charm along the way and the amour that develops doesn't strike with fervor le coeur.  Despite the clever staging and earnest performances by Cohler & Goss the plays structure becomes cliched and the production cloying.