By GREGORY LASKI
Image © Steve McNicholas Courtesy: PNC Broadway in Pittsburgh
STOMP has been around for most of my 41 years of life. I didn’t check, but I’d bet many of the members of this 30th Anniversary North American tour weren’t alive when the show debuted in New York in 1994.
The fact says less about my mid-life anxieties than the staying power of what’s become a pop culture phenomenon—and one that I somehow never had the chance to see until this tour rolled into the Benedum Center on Friday evening.
I’m glad I finally did.
This exuberant production featured Carnegie Mellon University graduate Jude Caminos among the ensemble of eight. STOMP’s fetching blend of physical movement, percussion performance, and visual comedy was on full display.
Born in Brighton, UK, in 1991, the show is co-created by directors Luke Cresswell and Steve McNicholas, who performed together in street bands and theatre troupes.
Their collaboration spawned STOMP, which remains true to its back-alley origins even as it has scaled up in the three decades since its New York debut. The show has brought its signature performance style to a 1997 HBO special, the 2012 Olympic Games in London — and, closer to home, an episode of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood from 1995.
STOMP last beat on the Benedum stage in 2017. As a season special for the 2024-2025 PNC Broadway in Pittsburgh series, STOMP returns for a two-day stop in Pittsburgh — representing a short trek westward following the company’s Wednesday evening show in Reading, PA, before it heads south to Arkansas.
This staging marks STOMP‘s ninth total appearance in our city.
On Friday, Micah Cowher, who leads the talented ensemble, strolled onto the stage brandishing a push broom. At first, Cowher inconspicuously sweeps the floor, but soon he discovers the percussive possibilities presented by the object in his hands.
It’s a prelude to the show, an origin story of STOMP, and a lesson about what you can make out of nothing, all in one.
From that point, everything from mops to matches to newspapers — even the kitchen sink (and not the proverbial one) — serves as musical instruments.
In one of my favorite sketches, Caminos digs into the garbage and crafts a rhythmic melody from what’s inside: an air-filled Tostitos bag, a discarded Chinese takeout container, and a “Super Big Gulp” cup emptied of its carbonated contents.
The abiding allure of STOMP owes in part, I think, to these scenes of bricolage, a word that comes from the French for “do-it-yourself.”
Mid-20th-century European philosophers turned to bricolage as a concept to understand the structure of myth and even the nature of language itself: how we necessarily make do with the material given to us, or what we’re left with, repurposing and adapting it, and finally managing to forge something new — or at least something that works.
There’s not a story in STOMP as there is in the plot of a play or the unfolding of a musical, but the show tells a tale nonetheless, and that’s a key reason why it works so well.
Of course, Mr. Rogers already knew all of this.
In that 1995 episode, the STOMP ensemble explained, “You can pretty much make an instrument out of anything.”
“Is that ever fun!” Rogers exclaimed.
The standing ovation that Friday’s audience gave the anniversary touring company proves that STOMP still makes us feel the fun 30 years later.
TICKETS AND DETAILS
STOMP runs Friday, October 18th through Saturday, 19th, 2024, at the Benedum Center. The remaining performance times are 2 pm and 7:30 pm on Sat. A talkback follows the 7:30 pm Saturday performance. PNC Broadway in Pittsburgh is a project of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust.
Tickets at: https://trustarts.org/production/94993/stomp
AUTHOR BIO
Gregory Laski holds a PhD in English from Northwestern University and writes about culture and civic life in Pittsburgh and beyond. To learn more about his work, subscribe to his Substack.
Categories: Arts and Ideas
Leave a Reply Cancel reply