So I have this MacBook Air that I haven't used in a year and I forgot the password. Problem is, the display has been broken for a long time, so I have been using an external monitor with it, but I couldn't find a way to get Recovery Mode to display to the external monitor.

I managed to use the VoiceOver function to erase the hard drive, but because I didn't remember the shortcut to close the window, so I could immediately reinstall OS X, I restarted the computer. 

Now it won't output to the external monitor, and VoiceOver doesn't do anything, so all I have is a blank screen. 

Does anyone know what this screen looks like and can give some simple guidance so I can reinstall OS X using the keyboard?

Update: I remember it saying that it ran Mac OS X Lion while I was going through the options, and while I'm not sure exactly which type of MacBook Air it is, it is small and its model number is A1370.

Update 2: After leaving it alone for a while, we restarted it holding command+R again, and it worked. Not sure what changed, but it worked.