Chicks and the Drama Dick: PG's gumshoe goes in search of Bricolage's 'Bad Girls'

Bricolage gets down-right nasty in "Chicks With ..."

"Can I take care of you, or would you rather just watch?

The Drama Dick laughed to himself. It was a long time since he'd heard that on Liberty Avenue.

"Yeah, I'll just watch," he said to the director, glad of the chance to sit a while. His head still hurt from that rotgut red last night. If the paper would hire him to do more stories, he could at least afford a better drunk.

In fact, it was a long time since he'd been out on any Post-Gazette gig at all. Two years since they had him stake out the place where the "Cats" set was being built. Several more since he'd done background checks on that Boos dame and those lowlife Cratchits.

'Chicks With ...'

That's because of Rawson, that uptight theater editor, he thought. He knew damn well he called him to preview this late-night caper in this part of town just so he wouldn't get his loafers scuffed.

On stage, the Bricolage group was slapping each other around, but only in pantomime, like theater people do. Still, some of the broads looked good and talked tough. "Chicks With ..." is the name of the play, as far as the paper's concerned. By Trista Baldwin. With a subtitle, "Bad Girls on Bikes Doing Bad Things."

The Drama Dick hated long subtitles, but he had to admit he liked this one, what with tough girls being his idea of a good time. Apparently Rawson had liked it, too, when the same group did a staged reading two years ago. That was a block down the street in a basement joint, Pegasus, that was more the way the Drama Dick remembered Liberty Avenue.

Then, Rawson had said the reading was "a funny, ribald assault, full of raunch and wit." He even said Bricolage should "give it an extended run as a late-night show just the way it is."

The Drama Dick guessed that meant Rawson liked it, though you can never tell with theater critics. Well, he wasn't going to hold that against them, even if the show was now on the other, tonier side of the street -- the Cultural District, they called it.

They told him the cast of eight (plus two go-go girls, always count the go-go girls) was the same this time as it was then, except Adrienne Wehr had taken the place of Rebecca Harris.

He hoped she'd gone on to better things. But he liked what he saw, the whole chain-link-fence, comic-noir thing. The Drama Dick knew noir, especially comic noir. He saw that Lisa Ann Goldsmith played the lead, with Lissa Brennan as her nemesis. (He liked words like nemesis: you do a lot of crosswords in his racket.)

He felt right at home. But his head still hurt.

So to save energy, he figured he'd just quote the press handout, which called the show "a '60s B-movie parody with a twist. ... [about] Vespa de Amore, a prom queen runner-up who accidentally kills her sex-shy boyfriend and ends up on the road with an all-girl biker gang named Satan's Cherries. This wild ride features plenty of go-go dancing, hair pulling, mud wrestling and kung-fu fighting ... [presented] in full-blooded Bricolage style: popcorn, cotton candy, beer, T-shirts, live music and panties!"

That's what they said. Of course he didn't see any panties, just jeans and sweats, but it was only a rehearsal.

He also saw one of the chicks was pregnant. "Why can't pregnant chicks be in a biker gang?" someone asked. They told him one of the others was pregnant, too, though she wasn't showing. But they have an understudy for the one who's about to pop, so they're covering their bets.

As his head cleared, he sought out the bald guy, Jeff Carpenter, who seemed to be in charge, at least as much as the chicks would let him. He explained this was the second in Bricolage's Midnight Radio series, and he was excited they would have a 1952 Harley Davidson in the lobby at the pre-show party, which would be sponsored by White Diamond vodka.

When he heard that, the Drama Dick was excited, too.

With the Midnight Radio format, Carpenter said, "we can develop writers, not break the bank with our production budget, and keep it fresh." Sure, they had their financial issues, too, like everyone else, but they weren't panicking. The Drama Dick respected that.

Carpenter's wife, Tami Dixon, was the head chick. She went on about the sound design, the fighting and the music, all much more developed than two years back.

Well, you can't tell by me, he thought. I'm no la-di-dah theater critic. I'm just the Drama Dick. But for this one, I'll even come back and pay my way.

Friday's opening night costs $25 and includes a Halloween party (come as your favorite cult movie character) with food, prizes and music.