WEEK 3 of PNWF: INTERESTING MIX

F. J. Hartland

The Pittsburgh New Works Festival offers up an eclectic mix for the third week of its 20th Season.

There’s a family drama/comedy, a short farce and a serious exploration of race relations.

The bill of one acts opens with Salty, Sour, Bitter, Sweet by local playwright Paula Martinac.  Set in an upscale restaurant, the play focuses on a situation with which many families must face: the deterioration of a parent.  Dad Harry’s (Don Anderson) mind is failing; Mimi’s (Rachel Dillinger) siblings have decided that she should be the one to take him in.  After all, they have spouses and children;  Mimi “only” has a partner and a dog (and a one-level condo).

Anderson does a wonderful job depicting the befuddlement of Alzheimer’s disease.  Dillinger does a fine job capturing both the love and frustration faced by many caregivers.  Michael S. Krcil plays the put-upon server Patrick.  Martinac has done a outstanding job depicting the family’s predicament—all while find the moments of humor.  The script could easily be expanded into a much longer play.

Next up is Fine by Butch Maxwell and directed by John Lane. 

It’s a brief piece (and I don’t want to give away the essence of the piece), but Harry J. Roth and Erica Hughes (and director Lane), do a fine (pun intended) job of making the most of the humor in the script.  Despite the strong performances, Fine is really more of a skit than a fully realized play.

The events surrounding a lynching from the 1930’s comes back to haunt four young women in the 1950’s in Rhythm of Revenge by Kathleen Conner Combass.  It is the largest cast on stage during this season of PNWF (eight), and director Dek Ingraham does a skillful job bringing this powerful drama to realization.  Some of the performances are dynamic; unfortunately, some are not.  Sadly, it keeps the play from reaching its full strength.  Combass’s script serves as a painful reminder of the ugliness of hatred and prejudice.  It brings this bill of one-acts to a close that leaves you thinking long after the curtain has fallen.

The variety of plays in Week 3 shows just one of the strengths of the Pittsburgh New Works Festival.  You can catch a wide range of genres all in one sitting!

Week 3 continues through Sept. 26.