The Critics Agree Neighborhood 3 is a MUST SEE!!

Hello friends, below are a few reviews from last weekends opening of Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom. We are thrilled that critics and audiences alike are so taken by this show.  The immense effort we put in to making this show spectacular was well worth it, but it was no easy feat in just 10 days. We had a fantastic team of designers and performers that gave their all to make this production shine. Jeffrey and I are forever grateful to Matt M. Morrow, Stephanie Meyer-Staley, Dave Bjornson, Niki Ellis, Angela M. Vesco, Cory Goddard, Kaitlin, Tony Bingham, Jacqui Farkas, Bjorn Ahlstedt and the fabulous build crew volunteers. If you have not come down to see N3, please don't hesitate. With a pre-show game room lobby and a tight 80 minute show, you will agree that Neighborhood 3 is the perfect alternative to another night out at the bar! From The Post Gazette

From Out Online By F.J. Hartland Pampered suburban teens become addicted to a video game and soon the line between reality and the game is erased. What is real? What is the game? Who knows? This is the premise behind Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom by Jennifer Haley presented by the Bricolage Production Company.Neighborhood 3 creates the ultimate kind of fear…something horrifying in what is supposed to be a safe, quiet environment. Most chilling is the fact that the monsters here look just like us. Maybe we are the monsters. Best of all, you do not need to be a “gaming” expert to understand it—and I’m proof of that! Directed by Matt M. Morrow, Neighborhood 3 has to be one of the finest productions in Pittsburgh this year. The pacing is swift and deliberate. He is aided by a brilliant cast consisting of Jacqui Farkas (who plays all the daughters in this suburban enclave), Bjorn Ahlstedt (who plays all the sons), Tony Bingham (as all the fathers), and Tami Dixon (all the mothers). Not only does this amazingly talented ensemble has the task of playing a variety of characters, they also must delineate between when the character is really the character and when the character is an “avatar” (the matching character in the game), While each new character has a different costume, these changes are minimal; it is up to each actor to use vocal and physical alterations to achieve the effect. And these four performers meet the demands handily. Ahlstedt and Farkas capture the naiveté of some the teen-agers and the belligerence of others. Dixon and Bingham paints parents who are confused, angry, frustrated and sometimes compassionate. Haley has also peppered her script with a great deal of humor. Both Dixon and Bingham score big laughs when playing uptight parents. There is a fifth character who is heard but never seen. Randy Kovitz provides the voice of the “Walkthrough”—the disembodied narrator who walks the players of Neighborhood 3 through the game. The set by Stephanie Mayer-Staley is a textbook example of what a set should do. Not only does it create the feel of a suburban cul-de-sac with its cookie-cutter houses, but this set also manages to capture the essence of the video game. We see the parallel worlds, the wormholes, the mirror images. Its stark palate also makes a powerful statement about the world of Neighborhood 3. Lighting by Niki Ellis is effective, but I did notice some dark spots during early scenes which left actors faces difficult to see. And let’s not forget the new seating at Bricolage—which is much more comfortable and can accommodate the widest of behinds (i.e. mine!) With superb direction, powerful performances and a stunning set, you do not want miss to Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom! Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom runs through November 28. Learn more at wwwwebbricolage.org. From City Paper BY TED HOOVER

 

Fathers and sons: Björn Ahlstedt (front) and Tony Bingham in Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom, at Bricolage

After years of ridiculously complicated birthday parties, my kid's mother and I finally gave in to inertia and, in his early teens, said to our precious treasure: "Look, just invite some friends over and we'll buy the pizza." I didn't want to know how six teen-age boys where going to entertain themselves until I saw their version of a "party": Two of them played a video game while the other four sat on the couch and watched.

And to think -- those were the good old days. Today each would be sitting in his own room as they played together online. The solitary and sedentary nature of the cyberworld would seem to make the task of dramatizing it a challenge, but this is Jennifer Haley's aim in Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom, receiving its local premiere with Bricolage. To her credit, Haley doesn't waste time with backstory, so we are immediately plunged into the suburban landscape of detached parents and disaffected youth. A new video game has shown up: Neighborhood 3 -- which can turn the real neighborhood (including the actual houses and street plans) into the cyber-battleground where the players battle killer zombies. Haley has a lot of fun rubbing real reality up against the virtual kind, and soon all the teen-agers have been totally absorbed into the game. Whether that absorption is physical as well as emotional is a question Haley takes great pains to leave ambiguous. Written without an intermission, Neighborhood 3 is an amusement-park ride -- you're strapped in at the beginning and propelled through a series of twists, turns and dips. Then you're dumped out at the end exhilarated, if slightly confused. Like plays about writers, a play about video-game players could be hopelessly dull. (What's more boring than watching someone type?) But Haley resolutely keeps her characters away from the keyboard until the very end. I should say that the human elements of the show are Haley's weakest: Parent and child shouting at each other over the span of a generation, against the sterile perfection of the suburbs, isn't, perhaps, the freshest item in the drama store. But Haley's constant fiddling with reality and perception more than overcomes that, and her script is wonderfully inventive and theatrical. So is this Bricolage production, directed by Matt M. Morrow. On Stephanie Mayer-Staley's highly intriguing set, Morrow pulls out just about every theatrical trick he can think of to keep this production on track and off-kilter. Haley has supplied no end of very dark humor, and Morrow knows exactly when to play the joke while never loosening the tension; the build to play's climax is actually quite breathtaking. Jacqui Farkas, Björn Ahlstedt, Tony Bingham and Tami Dixon play several characters each, and play them with a harrowing intensity. Just as Haley has written them, these actors play the roles with force but with an opaque mystery as well. I do have one question about stylization. The actors rarely look at each other when talking (usually staring at fixed points on opposite ends of the stage), and the lines are delivered with odd pauses, as if they're trying to replicate how computer voice-software sounds. I couldn't tell whether this was Morrow's doing or something in Haley's script, but I strenuously vote against it; it continually pulls us out of the action to remind us that we're merely sitting in a theater watching a play. Fortunately the device falls away toward the end, and Neighborhood 3 goes out with a great big bang. Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom continues through Nov. 29. 937 Liberty Ave., Downtown. 412-381-6999 or www.webbricolage.org From The Tribune Review By Alice T. Carter, TRIBUNE-REVIEW THEATER CRITIC Tuesday, November 3, 2009 For those whose fascination with zombies is as indestructible as the undead themselves, Bricolage Production Company provides a drama that's both gripping and intelligent. Set in a soulless suburban development of identical houses, "Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom" revolves around teens addicted to an interactive online horror game set in a suburban development that mirrors their own. As the game becomes more and more realistic, their increasingly alarmed parents are as clueless about what to do as they are about the lives of their offspring. Aided by Matt M. Morrow's precise direction and Stephanie Mayer-Staley's imaginative set design, Bricolage's dynamic cast of four accent the immediacy, horror and intelligence of Jennifer Haley's script about the undead who may be lurking among our own families and friends. The production continues through Nov. 28 at 937 Liberty Ave., Downtown. Performances: 9 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. Admission: $15 in advance, $20 at the door. Details: 412-381-6999 or www.webbricolage.org or purchase tickets online at www.brownpapertickets.com/event/85826. Check out these blog posts by Pittsburgh bloggers: From City Paper's Bill O'Driscoll http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A71545 Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom at Bricolage It's a play about a video game about killing zombies, but don't be fooled. Bricolage's production of Jennifer Haley's inventive script is as striking a show as I've seen this year. One key to its success is a risky choice by director Matt M. Morrow and the Bricolage cast and crew: Most of the dialogue, and most of the action, are rendered in highly stylized terms. From Scene 1 on, all the actors (a cast of four and a off-stage voice) speak in the halting, nearly affectless tones of video-game characters. Their gestures are similarly confined to a limited range. And to top it off, the actors generally face not each other, but offstage somewhere -- mostly toward the audience. In theater, you can get away with a lot of things you can't on film, where photo-realism is requisite even if you're depicting Mordor or something. Theatrical sets, by contrast, are often abstractions, like Stephanie Mayer-Staley's genius stage design for this show falls. (The plastic walls, for example, have human-silhouette cutouts from which the actors emerge, like onscreen avatars; the pièce de résistance is a teen-ager's complete bedroom that pops from the stage floor.) But theater audiences are still accustomed to realism from their actors. So having the cast portray what seem to be crude cartoon versions of disaffected suburban youth and the clueless parents around them might alienate ticket-buyers right off. Yet this cast trusts Haley's words enough to unify the script's humanistic perspective and the production style's satirical edge. Bjorn Ahlstedt and Jacqui Farkas play, respectively, the "son type" and the "daughter type," while Tony Bingham and Tami Dixon excel as the "father" and "mother" types. (The prerecorded offstage voice, which delivers gaming clues, belongs to Randy Kovitz.) This show works so well not in spite of the stylization, but because of it. In almost Brechtian fashion, the acting style lets us see these kids and parents as beings trapped in prefab social roles -- the lecturer, the sulker -- unable to see any way out. In the odd scene where a "real" kid talks to a "fake" parent, the domestic and generational alienation Haley is depicting is brought to a fine point. It's as if the kid who we assume is playing the game is instinctively satirizing his own parent. Thus are the lines between the play's reality and its fantasy compellingly blurred, which is one of Haley's cautionary themes. Another highlight is the scene -- sparklingly played by Dixon and Ahlstedt for both humor and terror -- where a "real" mom finds herself trapped in the game with her son's friend's oversized digital avatar. The play's final scene takes place in that fabulous pop-up bedroom. Ironically enough, it's the production's only realistic set. And it's just here that the acting style goes fully "straight" to literally bring home the dangers not of video games, per se, but of living with people who've become strangers. (Neighborhood 3 continues Fridays and Saturdays through Nov. 28; 412-381-6999 or www.webbricolage.org) From Gab Bonesso's Blog http://gabbonesso.com/ Bricolage redefines theatre in Pittsburgh, and perhaps, theatre period. Posted on November 10, 2009 Sometimes I believe that it can be detrimental to be too gushing with praise. Like, if I were to describe something as, I don’t know, “the best play ever” then you may think to yourself, “really? best play ever? Bonesso must be manic again.” and completely dismiss my statement. However, if I were to describe something as, “the coolest, hippest, smartest, freshest, most innovative, thrilling, scary, fun, funny, dark play that has been written in the last 30 years” then maybe, just maybe, you’ll listen to my ass. Well, it’s true. I had the pleasure of seeing Bricolage’s Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom last Friday night, and OMG!!! Literally, OMG!!!! It was so good that I’m incapable of using non-tweener terms! OMG!!!! The play is basically about the fine line between reality and fantasy. It’s about a neighborhood where the parents are starting to become concerned with their children’s obsession with the latest video game called “Neighborhood 3: Requisition Doom”. In the game, the players are running through neighborhoods killing zombies. In the final stage of the game, the players enter a final house where they are to kill the final zombies. However, every time a player gets to the final house, the house in the game becomes their actual house and the zombies who they are supposed to kill look exactly like their parents. So throughout the play, as an audience member, you have no idea whether you are watching kids who are playing a game or kids who are about to kill their parents. It’s so dark and creepy and awesome and intense and scary. OMG! Seriously, I’m going to say it… I have to say if I am being honest… Neighborhood 3: Requisition Doom is the best play I have ever seen. Period. I have never seen a play so relevant while still being unbelievably engaging and fun. The writing was witty and fresh and fluid. The whole show moved so beautifully. I have to commend Playwright – Jennifer Haley, Director – Matt M. Morrow, Artistic Director – Jeffrey Carpenter and Sound Designer – Dave Bjornson for their precision and attention to detail. Together they told an amazing story. Kudos to the actors: Bjorn Ahlstedt (son type), Tony Bingham (father type), Tami Dixon (mother type) and Jacqui Farkas (daugter type) on each of their performances. Personally, I thought Tami Dixon stole the show. Her ability to achieve such different levels as a performer is a treat for anyone to watch. Honestly, she had such moments of brilliance onstage that I said to myself, “Holy shit. She’s better than fucking Glenn Close or Annette Benning or anyone famous! How does she live in Pittsburgh?!!!” To which I say now, “thank God she lives in Pittsburgh. How lucky for Pittsburgh?!!!” and I mean it. You don’t see acting like that just anywhere. If Tami Dixon were to teach a Master Class in acting then you would find Gab Bonesso in the front freaking row! Do not miss this show! It runs every Friday and Saturday in November starting at 9PM (there is a happy hour from 8:30PM-9Pm in the lobby). Tickets cost $15 (in advance) and $20 (at the door). Call: 412. 381.6999 for reservations. You will regret missing this show. Reserve your tickets NOW.

Continuing my Pittsburgh Theatre Gems series, in this post I'll be talking about Bricolage Theatre, and their current show, Neighborhood 3:Requisition of Doom. Neighborhood 3 takes place in a the cookie-cutter suburbs, where the parents have recently become concerned over their teenagers' intense addiction to the newest online video game: Neighborhood 3.  The new game Neighborhood 3 boasts new satellite technology that uploads a setting that mirrors their actual neighborhood plan. The goal of this game? Fight through a bunch of zombies to escape the neighborhood permanently (no matter how many zombies (or people) they had to kill in the process) via the "Last Chapter " or "Final House." The more addicted the teens become to this game, the more the line between their real neighborhood, and its mirror copy within the game becomes blurred, and horrifying events begin to happen, in what was once a peaceful 'burb. Featuring Bricolage's founder, Tami Dixon, as well as Jacqueline Farkas, Tony Bingham, Bjorn Ahlstedt and Randy Kovitz playing various neighbors in their community. Even though it is a small cast, it is a very strong cast.  Speaking in broken dialect (like in video game), each actor held their own, with spot-on comedic timing and a sense of intrigue that was intensely built up until the "final chapter, and climax, of the show. The set is well-constructed, architectually pleasing and even features a pop-up, poster-ridden bedroom to increase the intensity of the final scene.  Both the set and the plot play with mirror images and feature cut-out homes that feed into the cookie-cutter, suburbanite environment. In keeping with the video game-vibe, each scenes are punctuated by blackouts, and a booming voice, giving gaming instructions, like "walk three blocks and turn to your left. Pick up the white hedge clippers to increase your Ruthless Points to twelve." As the play continues, all the factors roll into one, allowing even the audience to feel like they are part of the game. Mixing a perfect blend of humor and horror, Bricolage's Neighborhood 3 is a must-see this fall. Luckily, you still have several weekends to get down to Liberty Avenue, and at $20 a ticket, you cant beat a quality show for that price! A GREAT PLAY YOU SHOULD **DEFINITELY** SEE IN PITTSBURGH http://macyapper.blogspot.com/2009/11/bang-youre-dead-edition.html Dude, I went to see "Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom" at the Bricolage Theater dahntahn the other day. Excellent. Awesome. Really cool if you like sick but interesting horror. These parents take their kids into the suburbs to keep them away from the evil influences of the city. But the kids end up obsessing on violent video games and "that's where the fun begins." The actors who play the parents accurately portray the classic suburban weirdos who don't hand out enough discipline, who endlessly scratch their heads at why their kids are getting lost in some weird world of video games. The actors who play the kids are excellent in their portrayal of typical mixed up teenage suburbanites, searching for ways to kill time, and using their time less than constructively... unless you think it's constructive to become increasingly obsessed with violence and obsessed with video game zombies. It's not too long. It's punchy. It's well acted. It's well written by Jennifer Haley, who, while very dark and scary, is also pretty damn funny from time to time. I don't know anything about "directing," but these actors are looking off in different directions when talking to one another, kind of like viewing a conversation from every direction, as if you had two cameras. It's cool and it works. And the actors hall their own sets around efficiently, so none of the magic disappears. It is a small but way cool theater, Off Broadwayish but not at all low rent. Dude, GOTS TA SEES IT. Gots ta. Click below for "deets." Wow, am I current.