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LaTrea Rembert and Lisa Sanaye Dring (with, background,
Christine Weber and Sam Turich) are keys to the party in The Devil Is a Lie, a
Quantum Theatre production at the Frick Building. Cedit: Jason Snyder. |
Walk up the marble staircase of the Frick Building in
Downtown Pittsburgh to the second level, and you’ll likely think, like I did,
that you’re entering a disco instead of a makeshift theater space. Thump,
thump, the bass notes of a lively dance tune pop out at you from above.
On arrival, the
site is definitely festive with circular tables surrounded by café chairs,
mood-inducing lighting (by C. Todd Brown), and bleacher stands for additional seating along the
back wall. Before Quantum Theatre’s new play, The Devil Is a Lie, even begins,
the audience is asked to play a role.
Grab a vodka
cranberry cocktail courtesy Quantum Spirits of Carnegie, (a Cape Codder for
those who’ve been to Provincetown), and a snack cup, and pretend you’re a board
member/investor of Voltaire, a highly successful tech company, attending a
corporate party.
Pick your seat,
sip, munch and watch as the house manager (Marsha Mayhak) sashays through the
room explaining that everyone is invited to scan a QR code in their programs
and use it to cast votes on their smart phones during the meeting on a variety
of options. It’s much like taking a multiple choice test but with results that
supposedly affect the story line of the play that follows.
Sound like
hi-tech, interactive fun? Youbetcha.
Things get started
when we meet George Fast, (Sam Turich), the aggressive, alpha male, CEO-ish,
head of Voltaire, who has the morals of a Machiavelli and the empathy of
Genghis Kahn. Well nearly. Fast is the kind of guy who was probably half class
clown, half class bully during his high school days. He seems to have kept a
even balance on these traits now that he’s become successful and powerful. But
what price has he paid for his entrepreneurial triumphs?
It seems that his
journey took a supernatural Faustian turn somewhere in the past and now a day
of reckoning is fast approaching.
Basking in Fast’s
limelight is Margarita (Christine Weber), a visibly pregnant, submissive and
dutiful trophy wife. Weber plays a couple of characters, each one pulled off
with convincing subtlety and theatrical verisimilitude.
During Fast’s
introductory remarks to his investors, he exchanges some lively repartee with
Lucy (Lisa Sanaye Dring), a diminutive sprite of a gal with a moxie to match Fast's. Lucy’s job as event coordinator has her invite a DJ, known as
Dogg (LaTrea Rembert), to keep the celebration moving.
Dogg, at first,
works in the shadows in back of the carefully designed DJ booth (a construct of
set designer, Sasha Schwartz) and feels out of place spinning discs for a bunch
of staid investors. As the play progresses, he emerges as the lynch pin of the
plot, the one around whom the play’s theme and ultimate premise is built.
Rembert is the
most relaxed and low keyed of the acting quartet and the most fun to listen to. His lines
are, perhaps the most poignant, so keep a careful ear on what he has to say.
Director Kyle
Hayden speeds up the action to an almost frenzied tempo as the characters take
on Protean fluidity, morphing back and forth into a spectrum of personae.
Ideas, concepts and thoughts are entertained with an almost opaque randomness.
So much so that I briefly toyed with the idea that the play had been written by
one of the new AI apps I’ve been hearing a lot about. Very human playwright, Jennifer Chang,
introduces a mélange of concepts in her work that include worm holes, a
gender-neutral God and au currant topics like misogyny, race, class and gender
that come at you in everything, everywhere, all at once fashion. If The Devil
Is a Lie were a painting instead of a drama, it would be an abstract, more
Picasso than Mondrian, more Kandinsky than Pollock.
In its latest
production, Quantum Theater continues its modus operandi of staging
provocative, cerebral and poignant works. Not to imply some sort of causality here, BUT, after I returned home and went to bed, I had some remarkable flashes of imagery
while experiencing REM sleep. While not true dreams (they were too plotless and
amorphic for that), they did prove amusing. To create a musical simile, it was like experiencing an entropic progression of fatuous chords, playful arpeggios and supercilious credenzas. If you’re at all curious, at all adventurous, give the play a try and
see what comes of it.
The Devil Is a
Lie, a Quantum Theatre production, is at the Tenant Innovation Center, Frick Building, 437 Grant Street in Pittsburgh
through April 30. For more information, go to quantumtheatre.com or phone
412-362-1713.
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