Noise, odd plot hinder '36 Views'
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Rebecca Hirota gives a bright performance, while Matthew Gray is saddled with a stereotypical role in Quantum Theatre's production of "36 Views."
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The visual dimensions of a drama are an essential part of the productions staged by the peripatetic Quantum Theatre, so it's a no-brainer to figure out why director Karla Boos picked "36 Views" for her latest effort.
The play depends on the images of classical Japanese art to provide a lovely backdrop for its story of fakery and double cross in the contemporary art world. Boos settled on the lovely green of Washington's Landing, aka Herr's Island, to perhaps complement the delicate nature of that art.
"36 Views," however, is about interior spaces, the confined, sometimes claustrophobic spaces of galleries and bedrooms. When Quantum used the Frick Art Museum in Point Breeze for "Museum of Desire," another work about art, the production worked beautifully. But staging "36 Views" outside diminishes rather than enhances its use of lighted decorated screens and back projections, despite the usual fine work of Tony Ferrieri, Quantum's set designer.
From the rock music drifting from the passing Gateway Clipper to the chugging of a freight train -- distractions beyond Quantum's control -- the outside world was too much with us as we tried to imagine what the indoor world of the play felt like.
Playwright Naomi Iizuka interprets that world as one of fakes and thieves who take advantage of the naivete of art lovers. She also tosses in a gratuitous, hackneyed sneer at contemporary journalism as well that only confuses her already contrived and clunky story. To paraphrase a line by one of her characters: Let's just say she seems to have a weakness for stereotype.
- Where: Washington's Landing on the Allegheny River's North Side bank.
- When: Through Aug. 30. Wed.-Sun. 8 p.m./li>
- Tickets: $28-$32, some $16 student tickets; 412-394-3353 or www.proartstickets.com or www.quantumtheatre.com.
Iizuka's play wants to be "Rashomon" meets "Memoirs of a Geisha." Set in medieval Japan, Kurosawa's film sought the truth from several angles. Arthur Goldman's best-selling novel purported to re-create Japanese female society, albeit created by an American white male.
At the heart of Iizuka's story is the forgery of a "pillow book," a diary of an 11th-century Japanese bisexual mistress. It's really the draft of a novel by young gallery assistant John Bell, essayed earnestly by Jason Martin.
Seized upon by an art restorer named Claire Tsong, played by Shammen McCune, the draft is transformed into a convincing replica, so convincing it fools Japanese art expert Setsuko Hearn, in a bright, fresh performance by Rebecca Hirota, a New Yorker in her Quantum debut. In the real world, no expert would so casually believe such a rare artifact was genuine without testing.
The fakery unfolds under the nose of collector Darius Wheeler, the stereotypical smooth con man who beds Setsuko and foils the clumsy effort of so-called journalist Elizabeth Newman-Orr (Tressa Glover, last seen in "Harry's Friendly Service" at Pittsburgh Public Theater) to catch him in an illegal art buy.
Matthew Gray, who teaches acting at Carnegie Mellon University, is given little but stereotype to play with as Wheeler, lending a flatness to his performance. But Robert Haley toys with the stereotypical nature of the tiresome academic Owen Matthiassen, Setsuko's university colleague, to deliver what little humor the play contains.
Standing out, along with Hirota, is McCune, whose powerful dark presence in Quantum's production of "Yerma" still resonates. As an artist wronged by Wheeler, McCune brims with the emotions the other characters lack.
"36 Views" is a difficult play to stage, with its abrupt transitions from the present to the past and its artificial dialogue, marked by several long-winded speeches chock-full of Japanese art references.
But Boos organizes it neatly. She and the cast now and then rise above the awkward writing and dull characters to create moments of passion among the sounds of a summer night at the old stockyards on the Allegheny.
First Published August 4, 2009 12:00 am
