Now in its third season, Mythburgh has institutionalized itself as part of the 12 Peers Theater line-up. Each Mythburgh show has only one performance, and to date, all of them have been at the brillobox. Mythburgh features local playwrights adapting area legend and lore.
The shows aren’t necessarily thematic. However, the April 14th trio of plays were tied together by ghosts, ghost stories, and visions. It was timely given the performance corresponded with the first episode of the final season of Game of Thrones. Looking around pre-show, one knew it had to be a diehard crowd.
All three shows include director Brittany Tague. She not only directs all three but plays the role of bartender, Geena Moore, who’s in each play. The first play, Vince Ventura’s The Purple Bubble, features a ghost, Clara (Elizabeth Glyptis). Both narratively and visually, it could have been clearer Clara is a ghost. Within the play, Clara’s initially positioned as Allison’s roommate (Sara Ashley Fisher), and it appears the two are out for a girls’ night. In fact, when newcomer, Joe (Michael Barnett), walks into the bar, he immediately sees Clara and doesn’t seem to process her as anything other than a standard-issue human.
Clara does perch up on the bar, but it rings more coquettish than supernatural. When Allison tells a ghost story about her elementary school, Tague could have provided stronger direction. Joe appears zoned out, despite the fact he’s an investigator and claims to be riveted. Clara is tuned in and accentuates key moments in Allison’s story by tossing strands of sparkly Easter grass into the air, which creates some nice levity.
The second play is Gayle Pazerski’s Hallowed Ground. The play follows long-time friends and bar buddies Ray-Ray (Kiah Harrington-Wymer) and Jamie (Matthew Russak). Both are appropriately dressed in Steel City black and gold, and they casually drink beer, watch a game, and chat. Tague cultivates an ease between them that makes their friendship read as genuine.
They lament the bar’s imminent closure, and Ray-Ray reveals the bar will be torn down and replaced with a Starbucks. Pazerski does a nice job of balancing the tensions between wanting to preserve the past and the fact that not everything can be preserved. The bar is important to them because it’s where they met and have spent incalculable quantities of time. However, not every space can be a preserved sanctuary, and Ray-Ray speaks to that when she says, “There’s a hundred years of history everywhere you go.” It’s an eerily prophetic message. Less than 24 hours later, Paris’ 800-year old Notre Dame Cathedral was nearly destroyed by fire, reminding us that preservation of Hallowed Ground is inherently fragile.
The evening wrapped with Ed Tarzia’s Visions of Brookline. The play centers on an image of Jesus’ face that’s appeared on a closet on Pioneer Avenue in Brookline. Joe (Vince Ventura) and Geena play the cynics while Rosemary (Bre Brown) and Mary Ann (Briana Downs) take a devout line. Their outrage at the teasing cynicism feels a bit forced and exaggerated, and the acting gets a little manic and unchecked.
There’s a lovely moment when Geena inquires jokingly if all of the people coming to see the Jesus are Italian. There’s a brief bifurcation of the cynics as Joe mutters “uh-huh” in a challenging tone that quiets her. It’s a testimony to Pittsburghers’ deeply rooted ethnic alignment, suggesting that identity as an Italian is even more powerful than organized religion given Joe openly pokes fun at the Jesus image.
All three plays made for a quick and breezy 45 minutes. As soon as the show ended, director Brittany Tague implored everyone to gather up for a group selfie. I heard one attendee mutter, “Fifteen minutes until Game of Thrones, and she wants to get a selfie.” Yinzer Scared is emblazoned across the front of Brittany’s baseball hat. It’s the planned LLC name for the female ghosthunter trio of The Purple Bubble. More broadly, it’s an inadvertent FOMO reference to life at large. No Yinzer wants to be excluded from the proverbial water cooler talk, be it of Pittsburgh’s ghosts or Daenerys’ dragons. Once again, Mythburgh helps us be part of the conversation.
Learn more about 12 Peers Theater and their ongoing Mythburgh series online at https://12peers.org.
Tiffany Raymond has her PhD in 20th Century American Drama from the University of Southern California where her research focused on labor and social protest theatre. She also has two master’s degrees, one from the University of Southern California and one from the University of Tennessee. She currently lives in Pittsburgh with her family. In addition to being a theatre nerd, she’s also a tech geek, avid reader and occasional half-marathon runner.
Categories: Archived Reviews