Making artful use of what’s at hand, Bricolage uses the distinctive resources of the Pittsburgh region to create theatrical events that stimulate a heightened sense of involvement for the audience.
Spooky Games with Bricolage and Its Favorite Playwright, David Turkel
By Christopher Rawson
Bricolage's staged reading (I saw it Monday) of David Turkel's "Stroke" was the fourth in its 2008 staged reading series, which boasts the distinction of serving as a taster menu: after all six 2008 readings (one per month) have been completed, we all get to vote on which script will get a full production.
Note that they just say we get to vote -- I don't think they guarantee that it actually WILL get a full production. Maybe our vote is just advisory; possibly, when push comes to shove, they won't be able to get the rights (if Carole Shorenstein Hays or some other big Broadway producer has intervened); anyway, they can't guarantee a production next year, because these things can take time.
NONETHELESS, I think it's a great idea. And it's worked once: the voters'-choice of the 2006 series, Bricolage's first, was Turkel's "Key to the Field," a delciously surreal horror story, which received a slam-bang production in Sept., 2007. And we are promised a production (this fall?) of "Great White, the Opera," the 2007 winner.
But fun as this is -- to be in on the creation, to sit in judgment and play hopeful producer -- I think the real pleasure of a Bricolage staged reading is less in its future prospect than its lively present. These readings are simply among the coolest theater evenings in Pittsburgh.
It starts with the crowd, stuffed with theater folk and their familiar groupies (fans, I mean) -- if you regularly get around Pittsburgh theater, at Bricolage you're sure to run into plenty of people you know. But when artistic director Jeff Carpenter asks how many people have never before been to one of the readings, it's amazing how many hands go up. The churn of familiar and new (both on stage and in the audience) is a great draw; there's a sizzle of anticipation.
You could even call these readings a sort of post-modern salon. The actual play is almost secondary tio the pre- and post-show greetings and chatter (and wine and cheese).
No, no, I'm kidding, of course the play's the thing, as the prince once said. And that's the series' second great attraction: Bricolage likes to mess around with the new and the newly-conceived (as in the new interpretation of Shakespeare's "Troilus and Cressida" that comes next, July 27-28). The company's judgment and track record are such that you know the evening will have interest, no matter how successul or finished the play may be.
Of course a David Turkel play never takes a back seat to any social occasion. He's an intriguing playwright, with just enough track record of his own to provide assurance of interest but not enough for you to know what to expect.
So what did I think of "Stroke"? Well, I'm not going to say, am I? These readings are of works in progress, sometimes early progress, and aren't really open for review. But I will say that its interplay of real and spirit worlds and its layers of reality make "Stroke" a real mind-teaser. At just about an hour, I think it's still too brief and elliptical for a fully satisfying evening of theater, but it's an intellectual teaser, with a flat sort of poetry that's surprisingly compelling. Turkel and Bricolage are a good pair.
So no review. But kudos to the cast, giving physical dimension to this speculation on spirits. Laura Lee Brautigam played the waif-woman and Nick Lehane her dead brother (or are they both dead?) -- a compelling pair such as you might find in some very late, never published play by Ibsen. Helena Ruoti played the intensely conflicted mother and Sheila McKenna, a robust life-force.
After "Troilus & Cressida," the season's finale is Jennifer Haley's "Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom" (Aug. 24-25), another spooky play, based on a computer game. I saw it at this spring's Humana Festival, and I'm looking forward to experiencing its interplay of actual, spiritual and virtual worlds.
Come to think of it, challenging the audience to find its way amid that sort of interplay is just what theater by Bricolage is all about.
