Detroit’s Hilberry Theatre, where I’m currently spending quite a bit of time, will complete its season opening run of Boeing Boeing this weekend. Their stage won’t be dark for very long as Romeo and Juliet waits in the wings to open three weeks from now.

So before Boeing flies away to another destination, I wanted to offer a few words of appreciation towards this particular production. I also forgot that I wrote a similarly reflective post after the second time I saw the show.

Of the now four times I’ve seen this show presented – in London, Walnut Creek, Wilmington and now here – this was the most humane version I’ve seen. None of the other productions gave me a sense of what the characters might be like offstage or what their wider story is like. None of the other productions suggested the complications of the air hostesses’ lives as they navigated their complex timetables and globe trotting jobs.

Granted, it’s unclear how much my knowing the actors and actresses might be playing into my impressions here, and how much the audience is intended to identify with each character — that latter detail is always a role of the dice — but the attention to character detail seems particularly notable in this Hilberry production. Not to forget that this version also changes the gender of a major character, with satisfying and memorable results.

So I’m sure that the show will ride off into the sunset on the jet stream of appreciation, and here’s hoping it has a cruising final quartet of performances up to Saturday evening.