Riveting "Our Class" Opens PICT Season

But What Could I Do?

The Pittsburgh Irish & Classical Theatre’s (PICT) production of “Our Class” is a riveting and relentless story that has at its fundamental core the theme of man’s inhumanity to man.  As emotionally draining as the play is for the audience, one cannot imagine how the small but dedicated troupe can continue the pace of an almost three hour production spanning seven decades.

From early childhood through the beginning of the 21st century, Tadeusz Slobodsianek’s work follows ten classmates from the small, rural village of Jebwabne in Poland.  The ten, evenly divided between Jews and Catholics, start out as eager, playful eight year olds.  The German invasion with subsequent Russian support, followed by German re-occupation ignites the socio-political environment of anti-semitism, enemy collaboration, torture, revenge killings and the extermination of 1,600 Jews by fellow villagers.  The latter was initially attributed to the occupying Germans, but the playwright adopts the position of Jan Gross’ book Neighbors to reveal that the same classmates who played together guilelessly were the perpetrators of the herding into the barn and burning of their Jewish neighbors.   And while others continue to dispute that work and offer counter theories to what transpired on that fateful July day in 1941, history shows that it is possible, even conceivable, even though we would rather not admit it.

What is fascinating is the human study in group think and the continued self-justification for turning a blind eye to atrocities too enormous for most of us to fathom – ‘What Could I Do?’  The horrors of genocide perpetrated on neighbors and former classmates, combined with murder, torture, interrogation, rape, theft, infidelity – a continuous verbal assault on the moral conscience.

Clarinetist Susanne Ortner-Roberts

The staging is bare and stark, reflective of the bare and stark nature of the subject and the times.  Ten wooden chairs, a chain link fence and a chalk board that acts as the scene changer (annotated Lessons) are complimented by the concrete floor, piles of cinderblock, metal runged ladders and focused lighting.  As each cast member passes, whether by violence, illness or time, they exit the main performance area in a slow-motion, studied manner to observe from their afterlife behind the barrier of the fence.  Their haunting of the remaining characters, whether in reality or through a guilty conscience, is accompanied by the evocative clarinet of Susanne Ortner-Roberts.

Director Aoife Spillane-Hinks makes her U.S. directing debut with “Our Class”, perhaps drawing in part from the civil unrest in her native Ireland to explore the age-old neighbor as neighbor, neighbor as villain and neighbor as victim dynamics.

Director Aoife Spillane-Hinks

The cast is to be commended for playing the characters through all stages of life, spanning from two to seven decades, depending on their fate.  With a tip of the hat to irony, Abram, who was fortunate to emigrate from Poland to New York and thus escaped the extermination, furthers the story through letters and an ultimate return to the village of his birth.  His recitation of all of his ancestors and his own issue represented my one negative with the play…okay, we get it already – you came from a big family and you fathered a big family.

The cast featured several familiar faces to the PICT stage, including Bernard Balbot (Jakub), Katya Stepanova (Dora), Vera Varlamov (Rachelka/Marianna), Jonathan Visser (Zygmunt), and Aaron White (Menachem).  Those making their PICT debut were Justin Fortunato (Henick), Rafael Goldstein (Abram), Jimmy Mason (Rysiek), Caroline Shannon (Zocha) and Quinn Patrick Shannon (Wladek).

Rather than the refrain of ‘What could I do?’, perhaps they should have asked ‘What can I do?’  The audience is led to counter with ‘What should I do’ to their own introspective ‘What would I do?’.

“Our Class” runs from April 10th through May 4th at the Henry Heymann Theatre at the Stephen Foster Memorial, University of Pittsburgh’s Oakland campus.

Our Class was reviewed by RovingPittsburgher Reporter Joyce Kane, Owner of Cybertary, a Virtual Administrative support company providing business support services on and On-Demand basis for our clients.  We help you work 'On' your business instead of 'In' your business.

Shakespeare Meets the Stooges in The School for Lies

Shakespeare Meets the Stooges in The School for Lies

The Pittsburgh and Irish Classical Theatre’s production of David Ives’ “School for Lies” melds the elegance of language with the comedic tour de force of slapstick.  Ives renders Molière’s original dialogue in over the top rhyme, blending contemporary themes with 17th Century cultural ennui.

PICT’s production, mixing the classy and the crass in somewhat balanced proportions, stars Leo Marks as Molière’s truth-telling society hater, Frank. An unlikely name for a Frenchman of 1666, true, but Ives takes lavish liberties with his model. He adds farcical fanfare to “The Misanthrope” plot and blends generous helpings of current vulgarity into verse that mimics the simpering style of the Paris salon aristocrats.

Leo Marks and Nike Doukas as Frank and Celimene

  
Satire and scatological humor pair seamlessly in the witty and sometimes barbed verse.  The audience was left with the challenge of keeping up with the fast-paced socio-economic commentary when it switches from the present-day to the French classic and then back again.  Among the horrors Frank cannot abide are the hordes of the overweight in flip-flops blocking sidewalks: “Each one upholding our most sacred law:/The people’s right to suck a soda straw.”

The salon of Celimene (Nike Doukas) is the setting, with all the sumptuousness and excess that marked that era of French history.  The glittering crystal, silks, satin and lace evoke a time of majesty rivaled only by the backstabbing duplicity of court-wannabees and where the word play presented “gossip” as “reporting”…perhaps a touch of “Entertainment Tonight” or “Access Hollywood”?

Celimine with her admirers

Celimine (Nike Doukas) and Arsinoe  (Helena Ruoti)

Celimene plays to the crowd of anxious suitors with stinging impersonations of a sleazy lawyer in rap and an acquaintance/rival who channels the best of valley girl affectations – please, no more use of the word ‘like’!

Frank, his name a play on a synonym for candor, cannot stand the hypocrisy that surrounds him.  He initially scorns Celimene but when she mistakenly believes he has influence at court to assist her with her impending suit, she elects to turn her feminine wiles on full blast to make him yet another convert.  He quickly becomes enraptured, joining the other sycophants scattered at her feet.  Eliante (Robin Abramson), Celimine’s ingénue cousin ignores Frank’s friend and apologist Philinte (Joel Ripka) and literally throws herself at Frank.  At the same time, the devious Arsinoe (Helena Ruoti), while scheming to destroy Celimine’s reputation, finds herself entranced with the aloof Frank.

Mr. Ives descends a few notches below the comic refinement that Molière achieved in “The Misanthrope,” which is considered the ‘pinnacle of his art for the nuance of its portraiture and the sharpness of its satire’. In its more base characters and emphasis on lewd sexual humor, “The School for Lies” often evokes the bawdy bent of British comic playwrights influenced by Molière rather than the French master himself.

With a nod to Shakespeare’s comedies as inspiration, Ives employs the running joke regarding a man in drag as a focus on the bard’s tried and true disguise and revelation technique to bring the play to culmination.  The slapstick element, with the plate of canapés being repeatedly tossed in the air and the long suffering Dubois setting about to clean up, did get to be a tad tedious, although one member of the audience continued to murmur “ahhhhh” in sympathy every time, while the rest of us seemed to feel enough was enough.

The PICT ensemble cast did a terrific job with the complicated dialogue, demonstrating even on opening night the consummate professionalism of the troupe. The School for Lies runs through December 15th at The Charity Randall Theatre, Stephen Foster Memorial, University of Pittsburgh.

THE SCHOOL FOR LIES
By David Ives, based on Molière’s “Misanthrope”
Directed by Andrew S. Paul
Leo Marks as Frank
Nike Doukas as Celimine
Joel Ripka as Philinte
Robin Abramson as Eliante
Helen Ruoti as Arsinoe
Martin Giles as Oronte
James FitzGerald as Acaste
Matt DeCaro as Dubois/Basque

Reviewed by Joyce Kane on behalf of Dreamweaver Marketing Associates.  Joyce Kane is the owner of Cybertary Pittsburgh, a Virtual Administrative support company, providing virtual office support, personal and executive assistance, creative design services and light bookkeeping.  Cybertary works with businesses and busy individuals to help them work 'on' their business rather than 'in' their business.  www.Cybertary.com/Pittsburgh

Ivanov Amazes

The Pittsburgh Irish & Classical Theatre’s Chekhov Celebration continues with the classic Ivanov, Anton Chekhov’s play that explores the meaning of life and love in pre-Revolutionary Russia.  Not nearly as dark as other Russian works, Ivanov is billed as a comedy.  Comedy may be pushing it a little far. Although there were moments of laughter (and indeed, one member of the audience in Saturday evening’s performance erupted into laughter even when the rest of us didn’t find the humor); I would term it a tragi-comedy.

Nike Doukas as Anna seeks solace from David Whalen's Nikolay

Pulling on real life experiences as a doctor and tuberculosis sufferer, Chekhov weaves the story of Nikolay Ivanov, a self-loathing, deeply in debt gentleman farmer whose once-loved yet now disdained wife is suffering from the disease.  He wants to be alone, to read and intellectualize his existence, but his neighbors simply won’t allow it.  While the characters whine about boredom and spend their hours pursuing gluttony, liquor, gossip and card playing as further evidence of their dissipated lives, the audience is reluctantly drawn in to observe his suffering with an interesting mix of tears and laughter.

David Whalen portrays the title character replete with Hamlet-like angst exuding an unexplained grief coupled with frustration and self-hatred.    Selfish to the end, Nikolay finally ends his suffering instead of finding happiness with the young and impressionable Sasha (ingénue Katya Stepanova) on their wedding day.

Martin Giles and Katya Stepanova

Well-staged in The Charity Randall Theatre in the Stephen Foster Memorial on Pitt’s campus in Oakland, the small platform is transformed  alternatively as an estate garden, an elaborate reception area replete with crystal chandeliers and a well-appointed study.

Tom Stoppard offers this adaptation to modern audiences by brilliantly bringing the dialogue up to current, understandable prose.  The costumes by PICT veteran designer, Pei-Chi Su, evoke the glamour and excess of the Russian elitist society.

l to r:  Alan Stanford, Matt DeCaro, Jonathan Visser, Martin Giles

The supporting cast is strong, with Alan Stanford as the indomitable Count, Megan McDermott as the title seeking, moneyed young widow Marfa, Matt DeCaro as the scheming estate manager Borkin, and Leo Marks as the idealistic (and honest, as he continuously reminded us) doctor who attends the ill-fated Anna Ivanov (Nike Doukas).  Martin Giles, the emasculated chum from University days Pavel Lebedev, offers Nikolay refuge from the stresses of his depressing home life despite his wife Zinaida’s incessant harping on collecting the money owed to them.  Zinaida’s (ably portrayed by veteran Helena Ruoti) acerbic disdain for Ivanov typifies the classes within classes of most elitist societies.

Having seen two of the four offerings in the series, I was entranced by the talent of the cast and their ability to portray lead and supporting roles seamlessly from play to play.  This is no mean feat, considering the length of the monologues and the interleaving timing of the performances.

Ivanov continues for 3 more performances, through August 25th.

Photo Credit:  Suellen Fitzsimmons

Posted on behalf of Dreamweaver Marketing Associates.  Joyce Kane is the owner of Cybertary Pittsburgh, a Virtual Administrative support company, providing virtual office support, personal and executive assistance, creative design services and light bookkeeping.  Cybertary works with businesses and busy individuals to help them work 'on' their business rather than 'in' their business.  www.Cybertary.com/Pittsburgh

Held Captive by the "Pitmen Painters"

Review:  The Pitmen Painters

Pittsburgh Irish Classical Theater

Professional Theater in Residence at the University of Pittsburgh

by Good News Reporter,  JoAnn R. Forrester, Empress of biz

J F Harrison

The Pony Putter

From:  http://www.ashingtongroup.co.uk/home.html

I have four words for the Pitmen Painters:  Riveting, Irreverent, Insightful and Amazing.  I thoroughly enjoyed the play “The Pitmen Painters” presented by the Pittsburgh Irish Classical Theater.  This is a play based on a true story of Robert Lyon, Master of Painting at Armstrong College, Newcastle and his relationship with the miners who desired to know more about the world through their organization, The Workers Education Association.

The play presents a series of classes spanning the 13 years from 1934 to 1947.  During that time the world was convulsed in a major depression, a horrific war and post war recovery.  The original members of the class, thirty of them, are depicted amazingly by five actors.  From the first class, I was captured by their interaction and how they fought with one another and the instructor to understand a world that was beyond their experience.  We forget how rigid the class system was in England, and how little they really interacted or understood one another.  The world was defined in a certain way, and, as Americans, it is difficult for us to really understand such a rigid system.  The play gives an insightful look into that world.  One technique used to draw one into their time, work and life circumstances was to portray scenes on a screen with a projector that was behind the actors. Through those pictures, and the actor’s dialogue in front, one gets immersed in their world

Harry Wilson

Ashington Colliery

From:  http://www.ashingtongroup.co.uk/exhibition.html 

Lyon quickly realizes that he cannot just lecture to the miners.  He must find a way to communicate and break down the class barriers.  He decides to teach the men to paint.  He challenges them to explain their world.  He asks them to paint men, women and children involved in hard, backbreaking, dangerous work and to explain their everyday lives through the pictures they paint of life above and below the ground.  And paint they did, marvelously!  Each scene one sees the men grow, open up and demonstrate their artistic gifts, become knowledgeable in art and be able to speak elegantly and insightfully about pieces of art.

The acting was superb.  I was entranced and felt I was a cat sitting in the corner, watching it all.  When the intermission came, I was surprised.  It took me a few seconds to bring myself back from the mid 1930’s in England.   When it ended I wanted to say, “Wait!  There’s more!  Tell me more.”

I invite you to go and see “The Pitmen Painters” and be captured as I was by the play.  It is a wonderful way to spend an evening!

JoAnn Forrester is the Host of Empress of Biz, Reinvent in Rugged Times, a business Talkcast syndicated on PPLMag, Pittsburgh's First Internet Radio and TV Network.  You can hear JoAnn at Business friends every Thursday at 9 AM on the TalkShoe network or archived later at:  http://pplmag.com