Duane Rieder The motel set for "Bug," with Patrick Jordan and Lissa Brennan, is one of the more elaborate for barebones productions.

By Christopher Rawson
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

For the actress, it was a handsome guy in a Chicago bar trying to win her with excited descriptions of his theater company; for the guy, it was a vivid memory of the actress's electricity in the off-Broadway production of Tracy Letts' "Bug."

Shannon Cochran, director of barebones productions' "Bug." Click photo for larger image. 'Bug' Where: barebones productions at 3609 Forbes Ave., second floor, Oakland (formerly The Upstage). When: Through Feb. 18; Thurs.-Sun. 8 p.m.; no performance Feb. 4; special Valentine's Day performance Feb. 14, 8 p.m. Tickets: Suggested donation $10-$20 at door; reservations recommended at 412-363-5847. Related article 'Bug' rides the Snake for sound

The guy is actor/producer Patrick Jordan of barebones productions, a fan of playwright Letts before he saw "Bug." When "I saw this show I went crazy for it. I was like laughing, I was jumping, I was scratching. The woman next to me was appalled at me and the show. She was like, 'Why are you laughing at this?' It was such a mixed audience. Everybody makes their own reality for it. I had more fun when I saw the production in New York than probably any time I've had in a theater."

Shannon Cochran is the actress who played Agnes, the tough, burned-out but hopeful heroine in both the 1996 London premiere and the Obie-winning 2004 off-Broadway run.

Their meeting turns out to be one of those Pittsburgh-connection stories. Jordan had gone to Chicago last summer to see a Pittsburgh friend, Lea Coco, in Bruce Norris' "The Unmentionables" at Steppenwolf, and was delighted to find Cochran in the cast.

They were introduced in the bar after the show, and as Cochran tells it, "He started selling his company. He wanted me to come play the lead in 'Bug.' I said, 'I think that's passed me by,' adding almost as an afterthought, 'but if you want a director ...?' And then he pursued that like a terrier! I had to admire his chutzpah. And January's a slow time in L.A."

Jordan even let her pick the dates to fit her schedule. So that's why she's been here the past few weeks, holed up with the cast of five in what used to be The Upstage music venue in Oakland, where they've carved out an acting space and built (thanks to Construction Junction) what for barebones is a remarkably substantial motel room set.

It had better be substantial: "Bug" is a play that takes it out on set, actors and, as Jordan says, audiences -- don't bring your young kids. Cochran says, "if these college kids in Oakland find out about this, it should run for months" -- perhaps a too-rosy scenario for Pittsburgh small pro theater, but you get the idea.

Jordan describes "Bug" as "a genetically engineered love story, a theatrical thriller that mixes sci-fi with terror and comedy ... the mysterious tale of star-crossed lovers who are threatened by possible conspiracies and their haunted pasts."

Renee Rosensteel Miki Johnson, left, and Lissa Brennan in "Bug." Click photo for larger image.

Add blood, nudity, drugs, delusion, passion, wit and conspiracies -- or is it conspiracy theories? -- and you have the potentially crackling theatrical excitement that typifies Letts' work and has made him the darling of Steppenwolf (where he's an artistic associate), off-Broadway and in London.

This is the first of Letts' plays to be staged in Pittsburgh. Lissa Brennan plays Agnes, with Jordan as Peter, David Cabot as Goss, Miki Johnson as R.C. and Ken Bolden as Dr. Sweet. (But is he really a doctor? Cue the sci-fi effects.)

The movie version, with Letts' screenplay directed by William Friedkin, is due here sometime soon. Those same roles are played by Ashley Judd, Michael Shannon, Harry Connick Jr., Lynn Collins and Brian F. O'Byrne.

In Oakland, "Bug" will feature an original musical score by local super-group Midnite Snake, featuring members of Modey Lemon, Centipede E'est, etc.

Overseeing it all is Cochran in director mode, complete with Steelers cap and jeans, suppressing the glamour that has had her playing Amanda in "Private Lives" at Long Wharf and some of her dozen roles at Steppenwolf, where she also teaches and directs. She's also done film ("Star Trek: Nemesis") and TV, such as recurring roles on "NYPD Blue" and "Star Trek: The Next Generation," with lots of guest shots on "Grey's Anatomy," "Close to Home," "The Office," "Without a Trace," "Frasier" and "Seinfeld."

That's how you make a living in Los Angeles, which she now calls home, although she seems to work steadily on stage in Chicago, which she calls her spiritual home. That's where she headed after graduating from the Cincinnati Conservatory, where she transferred from Wake Forest. Back before that, the "where you from" question gets murky, involving Savannah, Ga., and Greensboro, N.C., traces of which still curl through her speech.

As to that Steelers cap, she says she comes by it honestly, because her husband, actor Michael Canavan (whom she met in L.A.), comes from Pittsburgh, and she saw her first game live this fall (one of those losses).

She laughs about all the "Star Trek" she's done: "The secret is being tall, having a deep voice and some classical theater training." Lately, she's been playing a lot of "the weeping mother of a troubled teenager, breaking down on the witness stand." No wonder she's happy to head back to Chicago and play, oh, Lady Macbeth or Hedda Gabler.

The offer to do "Bug" in London was a no-brainer: "London? I went!" Performing at the Gate Theatre in Notting Hill, "Vanessa Redgrave and Albert Finney were just down the street." As to the violent play itself, "the Brits think we're a violence-obsessed culture, so they thought it was the funniest thing there was."

Eight years later, off-Broadway wanted a star, so Amanda Plummer was hired for Cochran's role. But Cochran was brought in to replace her just five days before the opening, and the play was a big hit.

"It was the right time and the right place," she says. "And maybe it was [about] being in me for eight years." She won an Obie and other awards and stayed with the show six months, but "it's a harrowing role," so she was glad to let it go -- and glad someone else is playing it now.

"My favorite thing to come out of it was to meet Richard Avedon," the result of which is a portrait of her and her co-star, nude, in the May 2004 New Yorker -- "it was one of the last photos he took. He said, 'I think this is the first penis I've put in the New Yorker, except for a baby's."

Cochran hasn't sought directing jobs, but they've come to her anyway. "I like to put my hands in all the elements and collaborate with crafts people who know things I don't.

She admires Jordan, not because he was recently one of Pittsburgh magazine's "25 beautiful people," but because "he's an entrepreneur. Everywhere we go [in Pittsburgh], he knows someone, and they say, 'if there's anything we can do, give a call.' "

And she likes the set-up in Oakland, which isn't much less finished than what they had off-Broadway: "'Bug' was always meant to be a rough-and-tumble, gritty experience."