Category: The Shaker

By Michael “Buzz” Buzzelli

In a cold, remote part of 1950’s southern Ireland, the Glavin family gets an offer they can’t refuse in John B. Keane’s “Sive.” It’s an offer full of dark consequences.

Mena (Karen Baum) and Mike (Michael Fuller) Glavin run a ramshackle cottage, working every day to make ends meet. They are not the sole occupants. Mike’s mother, Nanna (Sharon Brady), and his niece Sive (Cassidy Adkins) live with them. It is not exactly a happy home. Mena and her mother-in-law despise one another. A torrent of caustic barbs fly back and forth between them, like bullets over a battlefield.

One day, Thomasheen Sean Rua (James FitzGerald), the local matchmaker, enters the Glavin cottage and makes an unscrupulous deal with Mena. He has been offered a large sum of money to procure Sive for marriage to a rich-but-old neighbor, Sean Dota (Charles David Richards).

A chasm of years stand between the nubile Sive and the wizened Dota, but he is willing to pay big money for her hand. Rua would receive a healthy sum and the Glavin’s would also profit from the deal. Thomasheen Sean Rua sweetens the pot by promising Mena that Sive would most likely want to take her grandmother with her, freeing Mena of the bickering pipe-smoking crone who constantly criticizes her.

Mena convinces her husband Mike that the deal is legit. He reluctantly agrees to help make the match.

Sive, however, has other plans. She’s in love with Liam Scuab (Tom Driscoll), a local boy whose family has tenuous ties to the Glavin’s family history.

The scheming and conniving reach a crescendo and soon Mike and Mena become horribly aware of their own greed. Innocents will suffer.

“Sive” is lyrical, melancholy and sad. Everything you would expect from John B. Keane, the author of “Sharon’s Grave.” Unfortunately, “Sharon’s Grave” a piece PICT produced in the past (pardon the alliteration), is a superior play, with a rich metaphysical and mythological subtext. “Sive” is the poor stepchild to “Sharon’s Grave.” Mostly, because the characters are so unlikable. There’s no one to really root for.

Sive, herself, is an underdeveloped character. She is a cypher. Her beau, Liam, is also barely in the play. The reasons are obvious. Keane, most likely, sought to spare the audience of any sort of Romeo and Juliet retread. Though, the elements are all there for such a tale.

More than anything else, the story is about avarice, and how money can make good people into monsters. Mena is Machiavellian in her search for financial freedom. Baum plays her with Mena with brutal fierceness. Her scenes with Brady’s Nanna are riveting. There’s a twisted joy to watch them attack each other with such fire and ferocity.

What “Sive” does have is a plethora of quirky characters, especially Pats Bobcock (Martin Giles) and his sidekick, Cathalawn (J. Alex Noble). Marvelously played by Giles and Noble. They ignite the stage in their brief appearances.

FitzGerald’s Thomasheen Sean Rua (a mouthful that rolls off the tongue) is delightfully evil. The serpent tempting a greedy Eve. A rat with a bit of cheese. Off stage, FitzGerald is a beautiful human being, but you’ll want to smack Thomasheen Sean Rua with a shovel and bury him in the bog.

The set is a dilapidated Irish cottage, masterfully designed by Johnmichael Bohach, and excellently complemented by Keith Truax’s moody lighting.

While “Sive” isn’t as moody, lyrical or as moving as “Sharon’s Grave,” it is a quintessentially Irish play from Pittsburgh’s quintessentially Irish theater company, and a fine cap to a fantastic season.

Grab a Guinness and get to the theater.

“Sive” runs till May 20, 2017 at the Union Project, 801 N. Negley Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15206. For more information, click here.

 

 

By Michael “Buzz” Buzzelli, ‘Burgh Vivant

When a man spends a lifetime digging his own grave, he must, at some point, lie in it. Instead of being a smiling, smooth-talking salesman, Willy Loman (Zach Grenier) threatens, cajoles and bullies his way through life. Even though he’s just 60 years old, it’s easy to see his death looming in “Death of a Salesman.”

The eponymous title is its own spoiler.  Death is most definitely coming for Loman, but will he make amends or burn the bridges behind him? Oddly, Loman does both.

More spoilers lie ahead, but the show was first produced in 1949. We can assume you heard about some of it already.

The titular salesman is hoping his sons, Biff (Alex Mickiewicz) and Happy (Maxwell Eddy) will become great men. They are not.

Happy is a jerk of a clerk. He spends most of his time carousing with women (Kristiann Menotiades and Daina Michelle Griffith). But what Happy does, doesn’t seem to matter much, because Willy is obsessed with Hap’s big brother, Biff.

Biff wants a simple life. He wants to be an outdoorsman, a farmer, but his father expects him to have a million dollar plan. He does not.

An incident from the past has caused a riff with Biff. The father/son dynamic has always been a dangerous cocktail, with equal parts love and hatred.

Loman is guilt-ridden from the aforementioned past event.

Psst! It involves ladies hosiery and beautiful, scantily-clad lady (Tressa Glover).

Loman spends a good deal of time getting his children to like him. Charley (Randy Kovitz) sums it up wonderfully in the second act, when he says to Loman, “Why must everybody like you? Who liked J.P. Morgan? Was he impressive? In a Turkish bath he’d look like a butcher. But with his pockets on — he was very well liked.”

Oddly, he never worries about whether his wife, Linda (Kathleen McNenny), likes him or not. Not only does she like him, she adores him, even though it threatens her relationship with her adult children. If only she knew the truth! Hint: see above referenced woman and pantyhose.

Miller won multiple awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, when he wrote “Death of a Salesman.” While it holds up in most places, it seems overwritten by today’s standards. Though it is a little long, there is some great dialogue.

The smaller roles are performed expertly. Menotiades and Griffith’s roles are infinitesimal, but they do a fantastic job, and seeing Glover on any stage is always delightful.

Kovitz’s Charley is sensational. The character has his own love/hate relationship with Loman and it’s played admirably. You can almost see the pity in Charley’s eyes when he hands Loman a wad of cash.

The boys, Biff and Hap (Mickiewicz and Eddy), do a great job. Eddy’s Hap is particularly charismatic and charming.

There is great expectation in seeing Zach Grenier, television’s smarmiest divorce lawyer, David Lee of Lockhart/Gardner (from “The Good Wife”), unfortunately with great expectation comes a disappointment. Grenier dials up the mumblecore to eleven, making “Before Sunset” look clear and concise. He muttered his way through the role. He plays Willie Loman as a downtrodden Donald Trump on a radio station that isn’t quite on the right frequency, loud yet garbled.

As for McNenny’s Linda, one couldn’t help but think that there are plenty of “women of a certain age” who would kill in that role. They would crush it. McNenny seems to be too young and too pretty for the character. Linda should look more like Barbara Bush, and less like a young Sharon Lawrence. Even though, Sherry Deberson does her best to gray McNenny’s hair, she still looks too beautiful for Linda.

The audience is meant to have a tremendous sympathy for Linda, but its hard here. She is acting older than she is and its distracting.

Not as distracting as the dissonant flute sounds that punctuate this play.

Normally, the set at a Public show is a crowning achievement, a veritable showcase (like the sumptuous set of “Daddy Long Legs”). James Noone usually does remarkable work.  Unfortunately, the “Death” set was perfunctory, utilitarian; most likely due to the multiple scene changes. Eerie lighting design by Dennis Parichy made up for it. There are flashback/visions of Ben (Tuck Milligan) and the Woman (Glover) that were downright haunting.

“Death of a Salesman” is an American classic, and it’s an important work. It does resonate so much with today’s society, and, after all, attention must be paid.

“Death of a Salesman” is at the O’Reilly Theater, 621 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15222. For more information, click here.

– MB

 

by Claire DeMarco, ‘Burgh Vivant

Sibling rivalry has been around since Cain and Abel.  “True West” continues that tradition with the two main characters, Austin (Max Begler) and Lee (Evan Saunders).

Both brothers, who have always had a troublesome relationship, find themselves together at their mother’s house in Southern California in the early 1980’s while she is vacationing in Alaska.  Austin is house-sitting. Lee, who normally hangs out in the desert, also ends up at mom’s place.

Austin is the younger brother embracing a traditional life. He is college-educated, married with children, and enjoying a successful screenwriting career.   Lee is a loner, an excessive drinker, and always confrontational.  He is also a petty thief (with a penchant for stealing household appliances).

Tensions escalate between the brothers when Hollywood producer, Saul Kimmer (Hayden Lounsbury) visits to discuss potential opportunities for Austin.  Through sheer nagging and persistence, Lee ingratiates himself into convincing Saul that he, too, can write a screenplay.

Conflict grows between the brothers as Lee threatens to break into Austin’s settled, controlled world.

How will this heightened conflict change the brothers’ relationship?  Or will it?   Does one of them change? Just wait till their mother (Christina McElwee) shows up!

Begler takes Austin from a relatively quiet, controlled figure to someone more belligerent and outspoken like his brother, while Saunders sustains the energy and intensity of Lee throughout the production.

McElwee and  Lounsbury complete the cast with shorter, but clever character interpretations.

One of the many toasters that Austin pilfers actually worked. In the second act, the entire theater filled up with the familar smell of toasted bread.

Michael Makar skillfully directs this production of  Sam Shepard’s American classic, “True West.”

“True West” runs through to April 30th at the Genesius Theater, Duquesne University, 600 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA. For more information, click here.

 

By Michael “Buzz” Buzzelli, ‘Burgh Vivant

A bunch of Pittsburghers are trapped on the T as it takes a late night ride from Station Square to the South Hills in Steve Hallock’s “Lights Out.”

“Light’s Out” is a character study, filled with some decidedly odd characters. The smart aleck, Sam Alec (Connor McCanlus), a cheating husband, Stanley (John Michnya), a drunk girl, Nadine (Jenny Malarkey), a Bucco’s fan, Mick (Michael Lane Sullivan), and a host of misfits.

There’s no plot except that the trolley is stopped in the tunnel and the passengers start to panic. It was a modern take on “Lifeboat,” with a black and gold twist. It’s as if “Bus Stop” collided with “No Exit” on the Red Line. Consider the title: “One train, not running.”

They are trapped on the T in the Mt. Washington Transit Tunnel; on a magical trolley car that makes stops out of order; the trolley travels to the Potomac stop and circles back to the Arlington stop for some reason (see www.portauthority.org).  It’s a small detail to get wrong, but an important gaffe. It was, after all, a play set in Pittsburgh with an audience full of people from Pittsburgh, and an easy thing to correct. If the play were mounted in Chicago, no one would have noticed.

In “Lights Out,” each passenger gets their own moment to shine. Some stay in the spotlight longer than others, but there’s a good cross section. The passengers are ethnically diverse, varied incomes and intellectual levels. Oddly, many of the passengers share an extensive knowledge and love of jazz and the blues, and not one passenger said, “Geez. I hate this music,” which probably would have happened if the scenario were real.

Sam Alec gets a lion’s share of spotlight.  He’s narrating the story as he types his observations out on his laptop. He is also annoying his fellow travelers with his snarky remarks. Sam Alec continues to chat up a young man (Arjun Kumar) who just wants to read his book in silence.

Bits of McCanlus ooze out of Sam Alec. The wall between character and actor is porous here, like a loosely woven gauze. It’s one of the smarter choices in the play. McCanlus exudes charm even as he’s pontificating on the scientific demise of the solar system. He also produces some of the biggest guffaws in the show, actual belly laughs.

The other passengers get some nice moments. A romance develops between buzzed hottie Nadine and sports enthusiast Mick. It’s a meet-cute story right out of Paramount Studios Rom-Com Division.

Stanley is a dichotomy. At first, you’re rooting for him, but, towards the end, his character takes a sharp turn. Michnya does a great job slowly revealing Stanley’s layers.

One passenger, also named Sam (Nik Nemec), mostly sits around and complains. Spoiler: He complains with just cause; for some unexplained reason, Sam ends up at the Eat N’ Park at South Hills Village on a Saturday night. Nemec’s performance, mostly frustration and annoyance, is laudable.

Another passenger, Anita (Melissa Franklin), spouts bible verse. She memorized scripture very well, but doesn’t really get a chance to reveal any depth of character.

Manny (Sam Lothard) is the voice of reason, a construction worker clad in a reflective vest. Lothard does a fine job as the affable every man.

There’s just so many of them. Nine passengers (actors) and three additional non-speaking roles (department store mannequins) and the conductor (Thomas Hammond). Hammond is rarely seen but his deep voice emanates throughout the show.

It’s hard to focus on the passengers. Once you are sympathizing with one character, you’re immediately thrust into a different story.

Kudos to director Cheryl El-Walker who cast the show so perfectly. Each character fit each actor extremely well.

Side note: El-Walker not only directed, she was the costume and makeup designer.

Special mention to Mark Whitehead for sound design. The noises of the trolley reverberated through the house. It certainly sounded like the whole audience was going along for the ride.

The plot of “Light’s Out” may stall on the tracks, but the characters are stimulating. It just seemed they each had more interesting places to go.

“Lights Out” runs till April 15, 2017 at the Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre, 937 Liberty Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15222. For more information, click here.

– MB