By SHARON EBERSON
Head to Google, and you will find tens of thousands of folks asking the burning question, “Is Die Hard a Christmas movie?” Bricolage Productions, back in the Midnight Radio business after a five-year hiatus, has this to say on the subject: an emphatic, “Yes!”
Just to follow up, is Die Hard N’At a not-to-be-missed addition to the Pittsburgh holiday lineup?
Yinz are jags if you don’t say, “Yes!,” to that, too.
Patrick Jordan says as much during a sound check, in character as an actor playing the Bruce Willis role of John McClain – an outsider cop from Wilmerding – in the uproarious Pittsburgh-centric adaptation of the classic 1988 action film.
Midnight Radio, in case you missed the prepandemic, first 11 years, was developed by Bricolage co-artistic directors Jeffrey Carpenter and Tami Dixon in 2008 as a live stage show that resembles a classic 1940s radio broadcast. It has commercial parodies, musical underscoring and live Foley sound effects, and there’s always a Pittsburgh-centric slant, none more so than the current adaptation by Gayle Pazerski and directed by Carpenter.
in the series since 2019. (Image: Sharon Eberson)
After Sunday’s SRO matinee, I spoke to two people who had never seen the movie (yes, they exist), but who had been laughing and clapping as loud or louder than the rest of us. It was the Pittsburgh n’at references that got to them, they said.
For starters, the skyscraper under siege by murderous thieves is called the “Terrible Tower.” Get it? Criminal mastermind Hans Gruber is, instead, Heinz Gruber. You wanna let him know he’s second rate? Call him Hunts.
Subtle, it’s not. But funny? Definitely.
Man of a Thousand Voices and Wilsonian Warrior Wali Jamal plays the Alan Rickman role of Gruber, plus an Uber driver, a cop and others. Bricolage co-artistic director Tami Dixon plays multiple roles, primarily, “my estranged wife Holly,” as Jordan’s McClain calls her over and over again, and Jason McCune and Sheila McKenna also play multiple roles throughout.
The actors, their yinzer accents turned up to max when called for, also contribute the sound effects, as they rotate positions like a volleyball team, serving up winners and zingers time and again.
Adding to the immersion in old-time radio is musical underscoring by Camille Rolla, signs for “Applause” and “On Air,” and a stage decked out for Christmas.
One scene that is highly effective in person, with the aid of lighting effects and Jamal’s performance, is (spoiler!) when his character is pushed out of a window and takes a great fall.
Jordan is hosting Die Hard N’At at Braddock Black Box theater, home of his barebones production company, while Bricolage awaits its new home. Carpenter said before the show that the new 120-seat event space and cafe in Wilkinsburg will have a groundbreaking next month.
Until then, the intimate Braddock stage, named for the late Bingo O’Malley, is a fine fit for 80 fun-filled minutes of “a radio show that’s not on radio.”
In 2024, that’s Die Hard N’At, based on, as I’m sure you know by now, a Christmas movie.
TICKETS AND DETAILS
Die Hard N’At runs Thursdays through Sundays through December 22, 2024, at Barebones Black Box,
1211 Braddock Ave., Braddock. Tickets: https://www.bricolagepgh.org/midnight-radio/live/die-hard-nat/.
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