Friday, October 30, 2015
Final Weekend for "Water by the Spoonful" at Pitt Stages
If Pitt’s drama productions aren’t a regular part of your theater diet, make an exception for this show. Pitt Stages, which utilizes mostly student actors, has scored a real coup as the first company in town to produce Quira Alegria Hudes’ 2012 Pulitzer-winner, a searching drama that weaves multiple strands of contemporary life into a tough-minded yet poignant narrative.
As Ted Hoover points out in his review in this week’s CP, Hudes’ formal innovation copes with the fact that much of the interaction between at least four of the play’s six main characters takes place in an online chat room. She does this by having them address the audience, as if we were the other characters, with the dialogue they’d otherwise be typing. Nonetheless, one of the play’s themes is the dicey nature of online life, which can bring people together – in this case, as a support group for recovering crack addicts – but can take human relationships only so far.
As pleasingly theatrical in its execution as it is realistic in its action, Spoonful also explores race, class, ethnicity, family, community and the cost of warfare on warriors (and their victims). If that sounds complicated, well, it is, but the struggles of Hudes’ sharply etched characters still feel universal. (She is best known for her book for the hit Broadway musical In the Heights.) Ricardo Vila-Roger's direction keeps the focus sharp.
Three performances remain of Water by the Spoonful, at 8 p.m. tonight, 8 p.m. tomorrow and 2 p.m. Sunday. The show’s at the Heymann Theatre, 4200 Fifth Ave., right by the Cathedral of Learning, in Oakland.
Tickets are $12-25 and are available here.
As Ted Hoover points out in his review in this week’s CP, Hudes’ formal innovation copes with the fact that much of the interaction between at least four of the play’s six main characters takes place in an online chat room. She does this by having them address the audience, as if we were the other characters, with the dialogue they’d otherwise be typing. Nonetheless, one of the play’s themes is the dicey nature of online life, which can bring people together – in this case, as a support group for recovering crack addicts – but can take human relationships only so far.
As pleasingly theatrical in its execution as it is realistic in its action, Spoonful also explores race, class, ethnicity, family, community and the cost of warfare on warriors (and their victims). If that sounds complicated, well, it is, but the struggles of Hudes’ sharply etched characters still feel universal. (She is best known for her book for the hit Broadway musical In the Heights.) Ricardo Vila-Roger's direction keeps the focus sharp.
Three performances remain of Water by the Spoonful, at 8 p.m. tonight, 8 p.m. tomorrow and 2 p.m. Sunday. The show’s at the Heymann Theatre, 4200 Fifth Ave., right by the Cathedral of Learning, in Oakland.
Tickets are $12-25 and are available here.
Tags: University of Pittsburgh Stages , Water by the Spoonful , Program Notes , Image
