Tag: Theatre

By Tiffany Raymond, ‘Burgh Vivant

Off the WALL produces Lissa Brennan’s new two-person play, “Hoard.” Given off the WALL tends to produce a lot of one-person shows, the 100% increase in onstage talent is both a surprise and a delight. The commitment to duality extends offstage as the show also has two directors, Kira Simring and Brian Reager.

“Hoard” is set in contemporary Pittsburgh and takes place in real-time. It’s a 90-minute encounter between shut-in hoarder Viv Donahue and Claire, an “organizational life consultant.” Viv’s adult daughter has hired Claire to help clear her mother’s house of ever encroaching piles. The set is towering with dilapidated cardboard boxes, teetering newspaper stacks, and a proliferation of life’s detritus – an empty birdcage, crumbled plastic bags, and ringed coffee pots. You keep waiting for roaches to scuttle out as extras, and you feel compelled to scan for mouse droppings. That being said, for anyone who’s ever watched an episode of “Hoarders” on A&E, it still feels like Tucker Topel’s set and scenic design is “hoarder light.” Walkways are still fully navigable, and Viv’s story and psychology would only be enhanced with an even more buried alive design.

Before the play even starts, Simring and Reager choose to set the scene with raucously loud rock music. While we haven’t yet met Viv (Virginia Wall Gruenert), the music feels overpowering and out of sync with a household where an overstuffed armchair hermetically sealed with a crocheted blanket is the living room centerpiece. The music is indeed a miss.

Luckily, Simring and Reager redeem themselves with four steady hands in guiding the performances of Gruenert and Claire (Erika Cuenca). Gruenert finds that delicate balance of making Viv as forgettable as anyone you might pass in the frozen food aisle at Giant Eagle, but because we get to spend time with her, we also get to see beyond the reach for frozen pizza. Viv is upper middle-aged, overweight, and wears frumpy shapeless clothes with elasticized waistband pants. Her dyed red hair is so short it doesn’t even seem like roots could show, and yet they do. Like any hoarder, there are deeper psychological underpinnings to her compulsion. From the outset, she exudes a nervous energy that expresses itself in repetition, immediately insisting Claire call her “just Viv…Viv, Viv, Viv, Viv, Viv” as opposed to Mrs. Donahue.

Claire is Viv’s foil. Cuenca exudes professionalism with sensible black heels, a white button-down, and pinstripe slacks. In fact, she almost seems too buttoned down and well-dressed for a woman who’s about to help a hoarder clean out her home. However, her clothing establishes the walled difference Claire wants to maintain between her professional self and who she genuinely is, a crack Viv widens into a crevasse in the course of the play.

The play evolves from clean-up session to psychological deep dive. Viv strikes a deal with Claire; Viv gets ask her a question when she gets rid of something. Interestingly, despite the towering trash heaps, the first item Viv chooses to part with is a usable one – a colander, but it’s a nice visual metaphor for the play. The colander retains that which we need while allowing the unusable to pass through.

One naturally expects Brennan’s script to focus on Viv as the hoarder. However, Brennan nicely develops both characters, arguably making Claire the more interesting one. We learn about Viv’s traumas, but Claire peels back her own layers via the Q&A or “give and take, take and give” as Claire calls it. The two strangers gradually expose a level of raw vulnerability that generally works, but feels rushed at moments given the real-time, 90-minute duration. When Claire swears and drops an f bomb for the first time, it immediately feels jarring and inauthentic as she’s been operating at arm’s distance business mode.

For Yinzers in the crowd, the play delights with regional nuggets like “redd up” and references to a Pittsburgh toilet. However, it’s not so colloquial as to be inaccessible to a beyond the Burgh audience. The Pittsburgh toilet becomes an educational moment for Viv as she describes this bizarre architectural feature of the standalone basement toilet to an appropriately puzzled Claire, a Boston transplant.

-TR

Redd up and head out to Off the Wall’s production of “Hoard” plays through March 21^st at the Carnegie Stage, 25 W. Main Street, Carnegie, PA 15106. For more information and to purchase tickets, click here.

By Claire DeMarco, ‘Burgh Vivant

The haves and the have nots are the basis for “The Outsiders,” a play by Christopher Sergel based on the novel by S.E. Hinton. Set in the 1960s, two divergent gangs of teenagers seem to be on a collision course. Separated entirely by their socioeconomic circumstances, the Socials (Socs), rich, privileged and from the west side of the city coalesce together. The Greasers live on the east side, most of them from low income and broken homes.

The Socs and the Greasers are their own moral compass, without much or little guidance from adults on either side.

Greaser Ponyboy (Dominic Raymond) is unique as he has a special affinity for poetry, likes to read, activities not embraced by his Greaser cohorts. Recently orphaned, he and his brother, Sodapop (Lawrence Karl) are under the guardianship of older brother, Darry (Michael Barnett).

All the Greasers are particularly protective of Johnny Cade (Dakoda Hutton), traumatized by a recent Soc beating.

Ponyboy is often the narrator, providing the audience with necessary backdrop information. It is through his eyes and perspective that the story unfolds.

Soc friends Cherry Valance (Carolyn Jerz) and Marcia (Ariel Squire) are unceremoniously dumped after disagreements with their boyfriends, Bob (Noah Welter) and Randy (Kyle DePasquale). Cherry and Ponyboy become friends after Greaser Dallas (Cole Vecchio) pushes himself on her. Ponyboy intercedes. In neutral territory, Cherry and Ponyboy discuss poetry, sunsets, and other non-gang-related subjects. A Soc and a Greaser are actually talking to each other and not AT each other. She articulates the Soc’s attitude on life in general. “We’re looking for something we don’t already have.”

Both gangs continue to taunt, agitate, and challenge each other. A series of tragic events involving both sides escalates tensions between the two gangs with dire consequences.

Exceptional as the traumatized Johnny, Hutton believably shows both insecurity and courage when needed, tenderness and love when necessary.

Raymond portrays Ponyboy as the youthful Greaser and grows that character. He is able to convey his understanding that’s it’s not just a black and white world, but there’s also a bit of gray.

Vecchio transitions from a wise-cracking Greaser with all the “I’m the dude” moves one expects from that character into a sensitive, feeling, insecure young adult.

The production is brilliantly executed with a finely tuned, well-balanced ensemble with excellent direction by Scott P. Calhoon.

The play takes place on an open stage with the background conducive to either the outdoors or indoors. Subtle, quick, simple and quiet prop movements by the cast suggest a change of scene or venue.

Fight Director Michael R. Petyak’s choreography of fight scenes, transitioning their physicality into a slow-motion ballet effect is beautiful.

-Ced

“The Outsiders” is a production of Prime Stage Theatre at the New Hazlett Theatre Center for the Performing Arts, 6 Allegheny Square E, Pittsburgh, PA 15212 and runs from March 6 – March 15, 2020. For more information, click here.

by Tiffany Raymond, ‘Burgh Vivant

It’s tempting to dismiss Susan Glaspell’s play, “The Verge,” as dated, given its one-year shy of its centenary. However, Glaspell was a powerhouse in her day and has ascended to dramatic legend. She was only the second woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and she cofounded the Provincetown Players, widely considered to be America’s first theatre company. Her 1916 play, “Trifles” traces a woman accused of murdering her husband and was based on a journalism assignment Glaspell covered. “Trifles” always resonated at the college-level, a testimony to Glaspell’s timelessness.

“The Verge” is not quite as accessible, so it’s a brave choice by the University of Pittsburgh Stages. By 1921, Glaspell was detaching from realism and flirting with dawning expressionism. Where this falls apart is not in the play, but in the production. The weakest link is actress Emily Peifer. Her portrayal of protagonist and botanist Claire Archer embodies the oft-used corporate expression “building the plane while flying it.” This strategy can prove effective in fast-paced business settings, but it’s less successful in the dramatic arts where having a point of view on your character is critical. Peifer never finds Claire as she battles mental health issues, and director Andrea Gunoe leaves her scrambling in the cinders. Peifer attacks her lines with a mad, headlong rush, occasionally punctuated by a deer in the headlights gaze to the galaxies. Nuance is sacrificed to histrionics.

Luckily, there are more roots to this botanical drama than the main character. The play takes place in Claire’s greenhouse. Sound designers Nick DePinto and Parag S. Gohel create an enchanting use of onstage sound effects that hearken back to popular radio dramas of the 1920s. Paper on a roller simulates the wind, and each mention of Claire’s botanical hybrid piece de resistance – the scintillatingly named Breath of Life – is accompanied by an enchanting, fairy-like windchime. Gunoe thoughtfully positions the sound effects team downstage right to minimize intrusiveness while providing real-time optics into the effects. Breath of Life may be hidden for most of the play (and looks a bit flaccid and underwhelming when it is revealed), but the windchimes build anticipation and enhance the play’s ethereal, otherworldly quality.

Sound effects acutely bleed into the physical. Howling winter winds accompany each forceful opening of the greenhouse’s iron-rimmed door on Kami Beckford’s magnificently towering set reminiscent of a slightly ominous Phipps Conservatory. The door always seems most difficult for Claire’s husband to open and close, and you’re never sure if it’s inconsistent direction or correlation to the opener’s status in Claire’s heart.

Despite (or because of?) her neurotic nature, the beautiful Claire is loved and admired by three men who all want to save her in their own ways. Gunoe turns the trifecta of sexual tension into a quartet with an androgynously well-cast greenhouse caretaker, Anna (Cadence Reid). Yet Claire is living proof that admiration can’t save one’s sanity. She both relishes and is repulsed by the male gazes cast upon her as none of them satisfy, even with the heady cocktail of husband, lover and best friend under the same greenhouse roof.

Claire’s husband, Harry (Cal Behr), is an aviator. She’s embittered that his daredevil nature is delimited to the skies, but she also clearly jumped into this second marriage without taking the time to validate her assumptions. The mustachioed Behr is reminiscent of Inspector Clouseau; he’s clueless and well-meaning, but his good intentions make him sympathetic. He’s a steadying course, which the volatile and often churlish Claire bucks against. From the outset, Claire flaunts her extramarital relationship with artist Dick Demming (Jason Goldstein). Goldstein finds the tension between the exultant masculine pride of conquest and exuding discomfort with Claire’s lack of subtlety.

Tom (Dennis Sen) is Claire’s best friend, and Sen wields his facial expressions with wonderful nuance. He finds an appropriately bemused sensibility towards his fellow challengers who know Claire in the bedroom, while only he seems to be able to calm her. However, Tom’s also the model of lovelorn confidante, torn between the desire for Claire’s continued friendship while coveting the headiness of her romantic affections. At one point, Claire’s hand drops from Tom’s shoulder. He reaches back with a palpable anguish to rest his hand on that spot, his own attempt to capture the Breath of Life that ultimately eludes us all.

-TR

The University of Pittsburgh’s production of “The Verge” plays through February 16^th at the Charity Randall Theatre inside Foster Memorial, 4301 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213. For more information and to purchase tickets, click here.

By Michael “Buzz” Buzzelli, ‘Burgh Vivant

Leo Schwartz and DC Cathro’s “Book of Merman” is a high concept idea. Take the “Book of Mormon” and add Ethel Merman. It’s simple! You know you’re getting a cross between “The Book of Merman” and “Annie Get Your Gun.”

In this show, the two Mormon missionaries, Elder Braithewaite (Jerreme Rodriguez) and Elder Shumway (Quinn Patrick Shannon) are faithfully attempting to execute their plan to go door-to-door to recruit people to their religion, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. One day, they knock on a hot pink door belonging to Ethel Merman (Christine Laitta) and all – um – heck breaks loose.

There’s not really a lot to the plot. Shumway has desires for a life in showbiz (and he as a few other secret desires). Braithewaite is holding on to a tight-lipped secret of his own. While Ethel Merman (who died in 1984) is a complete enigma.

They express all of their feelings in verse. There’s a lot of songs. The funniest of these ditties is “If It’s Not Hard, I Don’t Like It.” A thinly-veiled song of double entrendes that is meant to be about how there is no greater reward to overcome challenging and difficult tasks, but it’s really about penises.

There are two problems with “The Book of Merman.” One; the concept wears thin pretty quickly. Two; a good satirist knows to skewer a mainstream or more serious idea and turn it into comedy. When Richard Lopez and company decided to make fun of “Sesame Street,” he and his pals came up with “Avenue Q.” Recently, right in the Greer Cabaret Theater, Gerard Alessandrini took the Broadway hit “Hamilton” and created the parody “Spamilton.” The problem with “Book of Merman” is they took a really funny musical “Book of Mormon” and made an adequate one.

The cast is working really hard to sell the idea. They are terrific triple threats; each of them can sing, dance and act. But they can’t save this production.

Rodriguez knocks it out of the park, especially with his rendition of the Tin Pan Alley song “Hello Ma Baby!”

Shannon is delightful as Elder Shumway. He is a staple at the Greer and deservedly so. His comedic takes are genius.

Laitta is a true talent, but here she’s imprisoned with Merman’s voice in this show. Her imitation of the undisputed First Lady of the musical comedy stage is not a pleasant noise. She sounds like a cross between Edith Bunker and an air raid siren. Luckily, she does get to sing one song in her regular voice and it’s beautiful.

There also seems to be some crime committed on stage when Merman neither sings nor utters the lines, “There’s no business like show business,” or “Everything’s coming up roses.” If you’re thinking maybe the joke was too obvious, don’t worry – plenty of obvious jokes were made. A lot of clunkers, too.

Tony Ferrieri’s set, however, is a beauty. It’s comprised of the front door, a sumptuous living space and a bus stop all fitting together seamlessly.

John Lindsay McCormick’s costume designs for Laitta’s Merman are gorgeous, and it’s a treat to watch the costume changes.

One audience member, Jason Clark, summed the show up politely and succinctly. He commented, “I’ve seen better stuff here.”

– MB

“Book of Merman” runs until March 8 at the Greer Cabaret Theater, 655 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15222. For more information, click here.

by Michael “Buzz” Buzzelli, ‘Burgh Vivant

The Skid Row Urchins, Crystal (Tavia Rivee), Ronnette (Melessie Clark) and Chiffon (Abigail Stephenson), the ever present and ever harmonious chorus, warns us that strange things are about to happen in Howard Ashman and Alan Menken’s “Little Shop of Horrors.” Things get strange right away.

Schlubby Seymour (Philippe Arroyo) spends his days sweeping up the backroom and pinning away for Audrey (Lauren Marcus) in Mushnik’s Skid Row Flower Shop until he finds a very interesting and unusual plant. He dubs the floral enigma the Audrey II.

The problem is the plant is droopy and water, plant-food and direct sunlight do not seem to be helping. When Seymour cuts his finger on the thorn, the plant perks up. He feeds the plant a few drops of blood it blooms.

It’s tasted blood and it wants more. More. More!

Suddenly Seymour realizes that the plant is on a people-based diet. Chickens, pigs and cows do not seem to satisfy it – only human blood will do.

Enter Orin Scrivello, DDS (Patrick Cannon). The sleazy sadistic dentist is dating the original Audrey. The girl comes to work with a black eye one day and a bruised arm the next. Seymour and Audrey II (played by puppeteer J. Alex Noble and voiced by Monteze Freeland) decide that the dentist sure looks like plant food to them.

When the dentist accidentally suffocates on his own nitrous oxide, Seymour feeds him to Audrey II. The plant begins to grow and grow.

Soon, the store owner, Mr. Mushnik (Marc Moritz) becomes suspicious of the dentist’s disappearance when he sees Seymour and Audrey kissing and it’s suppertime for the plant once more.

But how far will Seymour go to get everything he’s always wanted?

Pretty dang far.

The musical is based on the titular 1960 horror comedy written by Charles Griffith, and directed by the pope of pop cinema, Roger Corman.

The cast, much like Audrey II’s mysterious origins, is out-of-this world. They are backed up by a fantastic orchestra conducted by Catie Brown.

Arroyo is adorable as the klutzy Seymour.

Marcus is a tremendous talent. Her “Suddenly Seymour” is a show stopper. She belts it out beautifully, incandescently.

Cannon is delightful as the deranged dentist with a sadistic streak. He is charismatic and  electrifying in his performance as Orin Scrivello, DDS. He also tackles a few additional roles with aplomb.

Freeland is hilarious as the villainous vegetation, Audrey II. He gives the creature the cadence and lilt of a scary ass drag queen from space. It’s a marvelous interpretation. It’s amazing how fluidly Freeland’s voice matched up to the puppet’s giant Venus Fly Trap of a mouth thanks to puppeteer J. Alex Noble.

Normally, the Urchins (i.e. the Chorus) are regulated to the back of the stage, singing back up. Director Marya Sea Kaminski moves the chorus front and center, and it’s pays off brilliantly. Rivee, Clark and Stephenson are amazing. Their voices combine mellifluously.

All the action takes place on an illustrious and imposing set wondrously designed by Tim Mackabee, and gloriously illuminated with projection design by Bryce Cutler.

If you’re in the mood for a monstrous musical, “Little Shop of Horrors” is the main event.

“Little Shop of Horrors” runs through February 23 at the O’Reilly Theater at the Pittsburgh Public Theater, 622 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15222. For more information, click here.

By Claire DeMarco, ‘Burgh Vivant

Mental illness and suicide are very serious subjects but injecting dark humor into the conversation often allows one to avoid coming face to face with those issues.  Conversation about these concerns are presented in the world premiere of “The C-Word” by Olivia LeSuer.

College-age Grace (Audrey Nigh) has recently come home to her mother, Mary (Katelyn Donnelly) after an attempted suicide.  It soon becomes apparent that Mary seems to have as many emotional problems as Grace as they never seem to speak openly concerning the attempted suicide.  They stand apart, skirting the issue in front of them with attempts at comedy and general avoidance.

Grace’s father David (Christian Poach) has been alienated from Grace for fifteen years and now wants to insert himself back into her life.  We don’t know why he hasn’t been in the picture but his concern for Grace appears sincere.  He is able to encourage Grace to stay with him during her transition back into the real world.   But it’s obvious and disconcerting that he doesn’t know much about Grace.  “Are you allergic to anything?” “What school did you apply to?” “What are you studying?”

Insecure Mary constantly texts and calls Grace while she’s with her dad, attempting to interfere with this new relationship.

Every time there is a tumultuous situation or avoidance scenario by Mary, Grace or David with each other, their first reaction is to turn on the T.V.  Insertions of T.V. clips and commercials (usually funny) help break up the turmoil going on with this dysfunctional family.

The use of the T.V. as an avoidance mechanism for all the characters is a clever technique: Tune in to tune out!

It is hard to imagine how a smoke detector provides an avenue for the start of healing and coming to terms with the serious discussion of suicide and mental illness.

Nigh plays Grace as sometimes insecure, many times belligerent, defensive and unsure.

Donnelly’s range carries her from argumentative to, at times, not even speaking.   Even when sitting and seeming to appear calm, she is able to portray any underlying tension by playing with and moving her hands.

Nigh and Donnelly both, especially in quiet moments do not project fully to the audience.   It was difficult at times to hear all of their dialogue which lessened the impact of their otherwise good performances.

Poach provides an even performance, sensitive to his daughter’s needs, but stern when necessary.

Scenes occur in either Mary’s living room or David’s with subtle changes on the couch and a few strategically placed plants an indicator of where we are.

LeSuer discussed in her conversation noted in the program concerning mental health issues that there is no end all cure for mental health issues.  A lot of recovery is learning to accept it and cope.

– Ced

“The C-Word” is a production of The Red Masquers at Duquesne University’s Genesius Theater, 600 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15282.  It runs from January 29 to February 2, 2020. For more information, click here.