There’s a terrific moment in Eddie Antar’s The Navigator when main character, Dave, is beginning to realize the true capabilities of his GPS system.  Not only did the soothing female voice guide him to the proper exit, but she (albeit a bit cryptically) pointed him toward a great stock tip, gave him some advice on how to discipline his daughter, and – if that wasn’t enough –  anticipated a huge accident and directed him off the highway in the nick of time.  Not quite sure how it’s all working, Dave says “I like having answers but… how do I know what the questions are?”

And that’s really the heart of the this little gem of a play:  getting the right answers to some questions? That’s good … great, even.  But if you’re going to have the equivalent of a Magic Eight Ball that’s omniscient at your disposal, you need to know which questions to ask … because if you’re not being selective about the questions, you’ll be tempted to ask that voice everything.  Soon you’ll find you’ve given up the very thing that make you human: choosing.  Failing.  Getting back up again. What The Navigator does, and does wonderfully, is show the initial seduction, the subsequent joy, and the ultimate frustration of always knowing the next decision you make is absolutely the right one no matter how crazy it sounds.

Kelly Anne Burns, Joseph Franchini, and Nicole Taylor in The Navigator (Photo credit Gerry Goodstein)

When we first meet Dave (played by Joseph Franchini) he is driving home from a job interview, freaking out.  He hasn’t worked in six months and really needs the job.  Moreover, he’s on the phone with his friend and stockbroker, Al (Michael Gnat) trying to come to grips with the fact that he just lost a bundle on a bad stock.  ”How did this happen?” he wails.  He seems to use the specious logic that just knowing why he lost all that money will somehow have it all make sense to him.  Of course, this is nothing more than the desperate ramblings of a man at the end of his financial rope; knowing won’t put the money back in his pocket.   But, as The Navigator proves over and over, to a man like Dave – sometimes being sure that something will work is better than understanding why it will.

Dave could be any one of us these days. A stretch of bad luck has made him tentative, given to second-guessing himself.  His mind is often elsewhere … running that last bad decision over and over, or wondering how to get out from under the weight of the guilt he carries for a few decisions that have turned out really badly.  These choices have stayed with him, circling his head like vultures, constantly reminding him of how devastating bad judgement can be.

Dave and his wife Lilly (Nicole Taylor) obviously love each other but the strain of being in survival-mode for so long has them foregoing the niceties.  They speak to each other not so much in the shorthand of long-married couples but almost in a Morse code, so devoid of extras is it.  They communicate simply to pass on pertinent information, but rarely to share thoughts or feelings.  They’ve been too busy counting their pennies and worrying about the future to take the time or energy needed for repairing their marriage.

So when the pleasantly modulated voice of the Navigator (Kelly Anne Burns) begins to provide answers is it any wonder that Dave -reluctantly at first, but soon whole-heartedly- gives up his own autonomy and blindly follows the advice of the voice coming out of his dashboard?  Especially when that voice leads him to money, a better relationship with his wife, and a new outlook on the road up ahead?  Where once he was timid and overwhelmed he is now confident and sure.  And completely reliant on his Navigator.

Initially the storyline sounds a bit gimmicky, maybe even a bit campy.   But what playwright Eddie Antar has done so well is let the modern day Genie-in-a-bottle scenario unfold naturally (or as naturally as one might expect if your car suddenly started giving you the answers).  Dave experiences all the moments of initial shock and doubt, he tests the boundaries, he becomes drunk with power, then inundated by the almost suffocating inability to leave his car.  His Navigator has simultaneously set him free, yet made him a prisoner.  Antar also creates recognizable relationships in terms of Lilly and Al – long term people who care about someone who they suddenly can’t understand anymore.  Director Leslie Kincaid Burby does a strong job throughout; a few moments do play a bit like a Jerry Lewis act however Burby understands how to bring forth the touching moments as strongly as the comedic ones, delivering a snappy, heartfelt cautionary tale that plays fast and drives the point home smoothly.

Marrying all this together is Quentin Chiappetta’s almost unbelievable sound design which elevates this play to a whole other level.  Not merely random whirrs and click, Chiapetta has created an entire arsenal of dial tones, car noises and ambient transitions which almost become a fifth character of the play.

The biggest credit goes, however, to the actress who portrays the title character – The Navigator herself.  Crisply written by Antar, Kelly Anne Burns brings a wry note of humanity to an ostensibly mechanical object while still maintaining an overall sleek, steely automated exterior.  While she does very little actual interaction with Franchini there is no denying that the two actors play well off each other; together they create a truly believable scenario of man and machine.  During silent moments Burns is both inanimate and yet constantly engaged; robotic twitches in her eyes would have you swearing that she’s actually hooked up somewhere and transmitting data.  She is at once subtle and magnetic; the perfect actress to embody such an eerily engaging device.

If you’re unsure where your life is headed and you’re wishing someone could just give you all the answers, set your GPS to The Navigator.  Chances are, as you head out of the theatre later that night, you’ll think twice before turning your phone back on.

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• Stay Left At The Fork: An Interview With Eddie Antar About His Play “The Navigator”

These days, when taking a road trip of any kind — even if it’s just over the state line to New Jersey — it’s almost impossible to think about arriving safely at your destination without the use of a GPS.  The technology is so ubiquitous it’s now even an easily downloadable app for your phone.   Days of trying to stretch a huge AAA TripTik across your steering wheel as you drive and hoping it doesn’t fly out the window are over.  Unless you like getting pulled over for driving erratically, GPS is the way to go.

But what if your GPS could tell you more than which road to take, which exit is best, or which alternate route to use when you (despite its best advice) still managed to miss the turn?  What if your GPS started telling you the answers to everything ?  Especially during a time when you don’t seem to have the answers to anything?  This is the premise of Eddie Antar’s The Navigator – a show which originally was presented by The WorkShop Theater in 2010 as a Play in Process.  It was so successful that it was nominated for multiple IT awards, won 2 (for Outstanding Direction and Outstanding Lighting Design) and is now being remounted February 9-March 3 as a full production.

TEASER – The Navigator: Your GPS tells you how to get where you’re going, but what if it could tell you more? Dave has fallen on hard times. He’s out of work, drowning in debt, and his wife is threatening to leave him. Then suddenly his car’s navigation system starts giving him the answers. to everything.

Eddie Antar, thank you so much for giving us some time before The Navigator opens!  I know you must be really busy right now so our readers appreciate it.  So tell us — with only a $300 budget last year The Navigator swept the NYIT Awards with eight nominations, including Outstanding Production of a Play and Outstanding Original Full-Length Script. The Navigator was the most nominated show at the 2011 New York Innovative Theatre Awards. You don’t get nominated for that many awards with a gimmick. So while the teaser sounds cute, there must be more to this story than a know-it-all GPS. Where does the true heart of this story lie?

Eddie Antar: We live in a world where information is easier and easier to obtain. You no longer have to add, spell or keep your eyes open for exit signs on the highway. The heart of the play is in the question “Are we losing anything?” What happens to the life experience when all the answers are provided for you.

How did the idea of a know-it-all GPS come to you? Were you watching Night Rider and asking your magic 8 ball questions one night and thought “hey this could be a play!”

EA: I was touring colleges with my son back in 2007 and I elected to get a GPS with my Hertz. I fully expected it to tell me when to exit or make a right turn. What I didn’t expect was it telling me to keep to the left because we were approaching a fork on the highway. I looked at my son and said “This thing knows more than I thought”. After that the jokes started coming: “What if it could give you stock picks? Or Lotto numbers? Wouldn’t it be great if it could tell you what to say to your wife in a fight? How to deal with a troubled teenager?” My son Matt suggested that I write a play about it. My first thought was “I’m lucky if I get a 20 pager out of this.” But once I hooked onto a theme, I just kept writing.

I remember, as a child, asking my father how he grew up without audio cassettes. “We didn’t miss what we didn’t have” was basically the answer. Nowadays it’s hard to remember that there wasn’t always a GPS system to help get us from point A to point B … but people had to muddle through with AAA maps for years. So — my question is — if the GPS hadn’t been invented would you have written a similar story using a different scenario?

EA: I can’t think of any other plug and play type of technology that can so guide you for hours through to whatever you’re trying to accomplish. There is a point in the play where Dave, the driver, doesn’t like what the Navigator is suggesting, so he turns it off, but he’s unable to continue driving because he can’t read the highway signs. I’ve had that experience, where I’m no longer reading signs, I’m just listening to “Approaching exit… on the right”. I can’t think of another type of technology where it assists you so fully just by turning it on. Without that, I don’t think it would be this kind of play.

These days it seems like we’re all a little lost … we’re working harder and have less to show for it. Your character, Dave, is (unfortunately) more “every-man” than “some poor guy down on his luck”. Do you think this is what accounts for the success of the first production of The Navigator? That everyone could see a little of themselves in the character?

EA: Absolutely. But I do think that he is an “every-man” who is “some poor guy down on his luck”. We’ve all been there. A few things go wrong, one right behind the other, and we can become terrified of making one more decision. At that point we just want to know. Think of how high the stakes can get in the world we live in today. A few of choices go south and you’re really up a creek. Gambling can be fun, until one more loss could means total financial (or marital) ruin. I think that’s something anyone can identify with.

Many shows dream of being remounted, few get the opportunity. So first of all, congratulations! Secondly – without giving too much away – what types of things are you changing this time around? And what are you keeping from the first production? Or is it all “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”?

EA: We have more of a budget this time around and more space to work with. So this time around we’ll be playing some with production values (set, lights and sound to some degree. Our sound designer is a genius.) But we’re all mindful of the fact that the play was successful for a reason, and we don’t want to mess too much with that.

Finally, if you had a GPS that could actually tell you anything, what would you hope to learn from it?

EA: The most important thing to me is my family. These are not just words. And I do worry about things like making sure we’re always fully funded, eating, wearing clothes and can occasionally go out and enjoy ourselves. I’m an independent database applications developer (ironic, I know) and if there was one thing I’d always want direction on it would be decisions to make sure that we stay afloat. I wouldn’t mind those directions at all.

Thank you, Eddie Antar, for giving us some great answers!  I know I’ll be looking forward to seeing this show.  And for our readers – here’s everything YOU need to know about The Navigator if you want to buy a ticket.  And – even without an all-knowing GPS – I know you do!)

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The Navigator

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