March 19, 2014

Page 50

C O H E N

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G R I G S B Y

T R U S T

P R E S E N T S

S E R I E S

{PHOTO COURTESY OF MARK GARVIN}

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Tad Cooley and Amanda Kearns in Tribes, at City Theatre

[PLAY REVIEWS]

VOICES HEARD {BY TED HOOVER}

WHATEVER YOU can say about City

“absolutely RIVETING� — San Francisco Chronicle

“theatrical MAGIC�

One actor unleashes the Trojan War on-stage.

— Variety

Theatre’s production of Nina Raine’s Tribes, you can’t complain you don’t get your money’s worth. There are about four plays going on inside, sometimes consecutively, sometimes concurrently, and if one of them doesn’t hold your interest, another will.

TRIBES continues through March 30. City Theatre, 1300 Bingham St., South Side. $15-55. 412-431-2489 or www.citytheatrecompany.org

STARRING

Teagle F. Bougere ADAPTED FROM

HOMER BY

CALL

412.316.1600 BUY ONLINE

PPT.ORG

LISA PETERSON and DENIS O’HARE DIRECTED BY

JESSE BERGER

March 6– April 6 O’Reilly Theater

50

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 03.19/03.26.2014

Raine opens with what turns out to be her least-developed thread — the life of a royally screwed-up British family. Beth and Christopher are parents to Daniel, Ruth and Billy. Everyone is an emotional nightmare and, with the exception of Billy, extravagant in their misery. John Judd and Laurie Klatscher, as Mom and Pop, with Alex Hoefer and Robin Abramson as Daniel and Ruth, give almost volcanic performances and, under the aggressive direction of Stuart Carden, play full-out. But don’t spend too much time there, because Raine’s attention centers on Billy, a recent university grad who is also deaf from birth. Billy’s journey takes him into the deaf community (a group his family has always kept him from). Tad Cooley gives

a quite moving performance as a young man slowly stepping out in the world after having been coddled for so long. And then Raine ďŹ nally gets to her real story, when Billy meets Sylvia, a young woman born to deaf parents and now going deaf herself. Sylvia straddles both the hearing and non-hearing worlds, and Amanda Kearns makes Sylvia’s conicts and struggles immediate and powerful. We go back to the family drama for a bit, then more with Billy and how he’s navigating his way in the deaf community — which Sylvia is leaving as, paradoxically, her hearing loss becomes more profound. And just because there are a few minutes to spare, out of nowhere Raine introduces another big, messy plot element (that’s probably a surprise, so I won’t reveal it). If the play sounds schizophrenic, it’s probably appropriate that this review does as well. Because even though I was fully aware of the clichĂŠs, non sequiturs, extraneous characters and overripe and/or unnecessary plot points, I was intrigued by Raine’s writing throughout and fascinated by much of what she was saying. Tribes is a mess, but a very compelling one. I N F O@ P G H C I T Y PA P E R. C OM

TROY STORY {BY MICHELLE PILECKI}

EVEN AFTER two-and-a-half millennia, a

Homeric voice can still stir an audience — especially as embodied by Teagle F.

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