BROOKLYNITES {BY TED HOOVER} YOU CAN PRACTICALLY smell the kale chips
toasting in the next room. The married couple at the center of Carly Mensch’s 2013 play Oblivion (now at City Theatre) so aggressively, if not stereotypically, epitomizes the moneyed urban hip that it’s surprising they’re not sitting around their Park Slope home eating gluten-free lavash crackers while swilling fair-trade coffee lightened with non-GMO almond milk.
OBLIVION
continues through April 26. City Theatre, 1300 Bingham St., South Side. $15-61. 412-431-2489 or www.citytheatrecompany.org
He, Dixon, is a former high-powered attorney who, following a breakdown, sits at home smoking weed and working on a novel he’ll never finish. She, Pam, is a high-powered executive at HBO working through a rough parenting patch with their daughter, Julie. Both Dixon (Quentin Maré) and Pam (Lisa Velten Smith) are lapsed Jews, with Pam a bit more militant in her non-belief. The household is shaken somewhat when high schooler Julie (Julia
Warner) starts going to a Baptist church with her boyfriend (who — of course! — is filming a grainy, black-and-white silent documentary to get into NYU film school). Julie’s newfound faith upsets the family’s equilibrium, and some old scars are picked at slightly until — and this is hardly a spoiler — everyone returns to firmer emotional footing by the end. Oblivion has a lot going for it; I’m not immune to the charms of smart people saying witty things (because that’s something that has almost disappeared from the culture). But I am surprised that Mensch has managed to manufacture two acts out of such a slight problem. My atheism is considerably more militant than Pam’s, but, as a father myself, I can say that there are far, far worse things a kid can do than go to a church. City Theatre offers a lovely Pittsburghpremiere production of Mensch’s work. Smith, Maré, Warner and Christopher Larkin are a wonderful cast, directed with grace and intelligence by Stuart Carden. There’s a wonderful moment during one of the dust-ups when Pam, perched on the arm of the sofa, does a slow quarter-turn away from Dixon. It’s barely perceptible, but indicative of the understated yet razorsharp stagecraft on display.
APRIL 7 @ 8PM
Tia Fuller Quartet
THE JAZZ SCENE STARTS AT THE CABARET THEATER 655 PENN AVENUE, CULTURAL DISTRICT • TRUSTARTS.ORG • 412.456.6666
I NF O @PGH C IT YPAPE R . C O M
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This woman is silent, but is she speaking to you? “I can’t tell if she is laughing or smiling or if the expression on her face is severe. She looks like a bride, a lost Madonna, a millennial Mona Lisa with a landscape on her clothes and skin. She is a riddle, an enigma, a beauty…” That is writer Kaelen Wilson-Goldie’s response to Shirin Neshat’s striking self-portrait, Identified, 1995. What do you see in this picture? Is Neshat speaking to you through the silence of a photograph? Respond to our question with text, photos, videos, or audio files, and we'll feature your response on our website.
nowseethis.org Shirin Neshat, Identified, 1995 © Shirin Neshat. Photo: Cynthia Preston, Courtesy Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels
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