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Articles by Stuart Sheppard
Quantum’s “Radio Island” is a Testament to the Remarkable Legacy of Karla Boos
In the spirit of educational guru Stephen Covey, I’m going to begin with the end and state that I don’t know how the play “radio island” concludes. Certainly, I have an idea, or perhaps an interpretation would be the better word, but I’m not really sure, and this is . . . fantastic.
Barebones’ “Ulster American” is a Brutally Entertaining Tragicomedy
A few days ago, my spooky and very prescient social media algorithm sent me a video explaining the distinctions between England, Ireland, Britain, and Great Britain – in other words, how to understand the political geography of the British Isles. Little did I know that this would be the subject of Barebones Productions’ new show, “Ulster American” (2018) by the Belfast playwright David Ireland.
No One Claps For The Critic
I have always felt that the sentence most essential to democracy — and to free expression — is the 1906 quote, often attributed to Voltaire, but actually from the English writer Evelyn Beatrice Hall: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Only a couple of decades ago, one would often encounter this statement, but now it appears to have fallen utterly out of fashion, as subsequent generations are less and less amenable to its inherent...
No One Claps For The Critic
I have always felt that the sentence most essential to democracy — and to free expression — is the 1906 quote, often attributed to Voltaire, but actually from the English writer Evelyn Beatrice Hall: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Only a couple of decades ago, one would often encounter this statement, but now it appears to have fallen utterly out of fashion, as subsequent generations are less and less amenable to its inherent open-mindedness.
Kinetic’s “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd” Has All the Clues
We could just as well discuss the historical influence of Agatha Christie’s 1926 novel “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd,” as we could its mechanistic genius as a whodunnit. The British Crime Writer’s Association voted it the best crime novel ever, and it’s been cited by famous writers over the past century for its innovative style; in fact, the work is often referred to as her greatest masterpiece.
Steel Valley Visions: An American Legacy
Throughout western Pennsylvania’s big steel era, artists captured a compelling visual record of the industry’s rise and fall: grit and glory, power and peril, beauty and brutality. At its height, the region’s three rivers reflected the brightness of fire and molten metal, and thick smoke filled the air. This was a place where muscle met machine, where immigrants and locals alike shaped not only steel, but also a vision of modern America.
Kinetic’s “Henry Johnson” Asks Visceral Questions With No Easy Answers
If you remember the scene in David Mamet’s “Glengarry Glen Ross” when Al Pacino’s character bamboozles some poor sap in a bar with a stream of grandiloquent bullshit, and sells him on a worthless real estate investment, then you have a good idea what his new play (presented by Kinetic Theatre, in only its third production) “Henry Johnson” (2023) feels like.
Steel City Sparks
Every July Fourth, as the last light fades behind the hills that cup this city on three sides, something old and immigrant-born rises above the rivers. The barges are already in position a mile below the Point, loaded and wired and waiting. At 9:35 p.m., the first shell breaks open above the Ohio, and for the next 20 or 30 minutes, Pittsburgh remembers, as it does every year, that the sky is not just a backdrop. In this city, it is a canvas. The fireworks that light it up are not imported.
Barebones Says No to Nothing in “Our Dear Drug Lord”
I once asked Barebones artistic director Patrick Jordan about something risky he did in a play, and he responded, without hesitation, “I’ll say no to nothing.” This ethos is certainly the basis for the company’s new production, “Our Dear Drug Lord,” (2019) in which four high school girls try to conjure the ghost of the Colombian drug trafficker and narcoterrorist Pablo Escobar, who became an international cultural phenom from the 1970s until his death in a bloody police shootout in 1993.
An Archeology of Seeing: David Muenzer’s Compelling “Exit Interview” Exhibition
Home › Article › An Archeology of Seeing: David Muenzer’s Compelling “Exit Interview” Exhibition “Goyna (Situation)” – detail – Photo: Sam Pliszka There are two kinds of artists one encounters in contemporary exhibitions: those who exist on the superficial, apparent plane of the obvious, and those who offer something deeper, with meaning to be found on multiple levels. (There is also nonsensical, banal art, but for the sake of argument, let’s concentrate on the former two styles).
Pittsburgh Ballet’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” Reaches for the Sublime
We are often surprised by the little things we find when someone passes away, things we were perhaps not aware of, or things that were saved because they carried an importance we didn’t realize. In the case of my mother, who passed not long ago, I found, in her closet, the ballet shoes she wore as a young woman studying dance in the years before I was born.
Barebones’ “Infinite Life” Offers a Night of Revelatory Drama
Between the actor and the viewer exists a crucial component of the theatrical experience: the character of the space between them. Size of stage, type of stage, and distance between the audience and the stage are rarely cited as qualities that engender the success of a play, but I would argue, after experiencing Barebones Productions’ presentation of “Infinite Life,” Annie Baker’s 2023 work, that the setting is what makes this show sing.
Pittsburgh Opera’s “Time To Act” Asks What If Sophocles Wrote “The Breakfast Club”?
We may not know much about how Ancient Greek drama was performed, but we do know that it was fundamentally a musical, and more pointedly, a choral event.
Public Theater's Cinematic "An Enemy of the People"
I have always loved the fact that, as a young man, James Joyce was so enamored of Henrik Ibsen that he learned Dano-Norwegian to read the playwright in his native language. And Joyce’s self-proclaimed first mature work, a play ironically called “A Brilliant Career,” was the story of a doctor battling the pestilence infecting a small town, which is essentially the plot of Ibsen’s “An Enemy of the People” written in 1884.
Barebones Gets Its Teeth Into “God of Carnage”
The living room has always been one of the most dangerous places in America, because it’s a space that brings people into close contact, allows them to share their feelings, and usually happens to be where the alcohol is stored. As we’ve learned from plays such as “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” and “Long Day’s Journey into Night,” putting people and drinks in the same place for an extended period can be revelatory, but almost always turns disastrous.
Pittsburgh Opera Delivers Rapturous La Bohème
Home › Article › Pittsburgh Opera Delivers Rapturous La Bohème We tend to view “bohemia” through a hagiographic lens, but its inception, as depicted by the French writer Henri Murger in a series of vignettes entitled Scenes of Bohemian Life (1851), was hardly romantic. The first bohemians were poor, often living in squalid conditions, and suffered morbid degradations in physical as well as mental terms.
Art is a Conversation, Not a Lecture
We read Stuart Sheppard’s recent piece for Pittsburgh Quarterly, “Is it Time to Stop Wearing Our Art on Our Sleeves?” with interest, and a fair amount of disagreement. Centering on Kara Walker’s recent exhibition at the Frick, which featured annotations from a select group of Pittsburgh-based guest labelists alongside the artwork, the article raises questions about artist intent versus audience interpretation.
Is it Time to Stop Wearing Our Art on Our Sleeves?
Imagine if before the performance of a play, the director stepped on stage and told the audience what it was supposed to think about it. Viewers would be insulted. Or perhaps laugh. Some might even walk out. Yet this kind of didactic inculcation is quite normal in museums today.
Reimaging a Home
Steep and narrow rialto street, once known as pig Hill and the route from the Allegheny River to the slaughterhouse, is a piece of Pittsburgh history. At the top of the hill is a new addition to local experience, the art houses of Troy Hill. As contemporary interpretations of historic house museums — Henry Clay Frick’s Clayton and Fallingwater are superb local examples — their redevelopment is an act of preservation but, more importantly, a reconceptualization of ordinary neighborhood homes.
The Time It Takes Between the Takes
In his celebrated writing workshop of the early 1990s, editor and literary guru Gordon Lish taught that one of the best ways to create an effective agon is to place divergent characters in a confined space – and let them act on their own volition, without smothering them in authorial intent.
Kinetic Theatre's "Embers" Tells All
That Kinetic Theatre Company’s “Embers” is such a moving play should be counterintuitive: it violates one of the most basic rules of art, “show don’t tell.” This is a work that shows nothing and tells everything, which is doubly ironic, as its principal character, who does most of the telling, does not trust language.
Briefly Noted - Pittsburgh Quarterly
I was fortunate to attend another remarkable boundary-blurring performance recently: the world premiere of the long-lost “Markus Passion” by Bach.
Pittsburgh Opera and Chatham Baroque Blur Performative Boundaries
These are certainly synergistic days in the arts. Theater companies are staging operas, operas are staging plays, dancers are speaking in ballets, and everyone is projecting video. Museums are mixing it up, too, but then, they always have. It’s certainly been a win for audiences – at least in Pittsburgh – where we have so much resident talent that this spilling over performative boundaries is no accident.
PICT's "Miss Julie" a Triangle with Four Sides
Modern adaptations of classic plays often look like someone wearing borrowed clothes: they don’t fit quite right, and it’s obvious that the person wearing them had to struggle to put them on. But when an adaptation of a play like August Strindberg’s “Miss Julie” (1888) really does justice to its antecedent and fits the subject matter – such as in PICT’s current production at Carnegie Stage — we as the audience get a double reward . . .
Total War Over Cocktails
If there’s a miracle in Pittsburgh Public Theater’s current performance of the 1962 Edward Albee play “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” — it’s that two well-educated couples can argue drunkenly for over three hours and never once broach the subject of politics. (And these couples are of different generations, no less). Of course, this would never happen today. But my oh my, how much more interesting conversation can be when the political realm is eschewed.
The Bitch of Being a Witch
Sometime around the turn of the millennium – resulting from what I would ascribe to the rise of social media and cable broadcasting — the term “trope” began to lose its classic and pregnant meaning of “figure of speech,” (i.e. an expression used in a nonliteral sense).
Let Us Now Heal Wounded Men
One thing, as men, that we rarely talk about, are the experiences we have suffered in the form of sexual abuse or trauma. The National Institute of Health found that 30.7 percent of men report having been the victims of sexual violence . . . and more than half of those before the age of 16. A 2014 study found that it takes on average about 20 years for a man to talk about his history of sexual maltreatment, because of the implicit stigma, coupled with our societal mores regarding masculinity.
Pittsburgh's Mal Goode: Television's First Black Broadcaster
On Oct. 28, 1962, the three major television networks interrupted their scheduled programs to broadcast a special report on what would become known as the Cuban Missile Crisis. This was a critical moment not only in American history, but also in the integration of American broadcasting.
Pittsburgh Opera’s “Armida” Sings in a Language Beyond Words
The French New Wave director Francois Truffaut once remarked of Alfred Hitchcock that he was the only director who did not require sound for his films to be understood; in other words, the effect of his visual narrative was so strong that dialogue was not really necessary.
Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre Finds Poetry in Dance
I should have known something special was happening Downtown on a windy, wet, early-April evening when I saw a 10-year-old girl literally yanking her mother into the box office of the Benedum Center. I hadn’t seen a child this excited to attend a performance since I witnessed a little boy twirling his red matador cape outside of the Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas in Madrid over a decade ago.
Quantum's Sleepy "Cabinet of Dr. Caligari"
Home › Article › Quantum’s Sleepy “Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” In drama, interiority always triumphs over exteriority. Just look at Shakespeare (even his history plays), Beckett, or Sophocles. And mystery is always stronger than explication. Who wants to be told what to think?
Learning to Fly, Again Pittsburgh Ballet's "Peter Pan" Makes Children of Us All
Marcel Proust may have needed a sip of lime-flower tea imbued with madeleine crumbs to trigger the memory of his idyllic childhood, but I found myself just as deliciously transported back to my six-year-old psyche as I watched Pittsburgh Ballet Theater’s magical production of “Peter Pan” in the Benedum Center last week.
Serious Daddy Issues: Barebones Delivers a Compelling "Crocodile Fever"
Home › Article › Serious Daddy Issues: Barebones Delivers a Compelling “Crocodile Fever” One of the most difficult questions a drama critic confronts is how much of the plot should be explicated during a review? I think it’s a disservice to reveal too much of a play’s action, as it denies an organic apprehension of the experience. Imagine seeing the film “Jaws” for the first time with all the surprise appearances of the shark divulged beforehand. It would make for boring and trite entertainment.
Bring the World to Pittsburgh
In pockets across Pittsburgh, a new and different city is emerging, one in which internationals and creatives are finding a foothold in neighborhoods that long have struggled for new vitality. A prime example of this is in Garfield, where Henry Simonds of Headwater Media envisioned a new kind of social enterprise for his hometown.
All Things Random, Edible and Odd: Essays on Grief, Love and Food
Until the closing of Carmody’s Restaurant in Franklin Park after 62 years, turtle soup remained a fixture on its menu. Once a staple of fine dining, turtle soup typically came paired with a shot of sherry to both sweeten and thin the stew-y broth.
The Moon is Just a World that Never Heals: Quantum Nails O'Neill
Home › Article › The Moon is Just a World that Never Heals: Quantum Nails O’Neill It is a precept of Zen art to incorporate the spaces between objects into a creation, and to consider them just as significant as the objects depicted. In flower arrangement, for example, the areas between the branches are just as important – if not more so – than the branches themselves.
Edgy road adventures lift Anne Ray’s debut Scenic Overlook
Part monomyth, part road-trip adventure, Scenic Overlook, Carnegie Mellon University grad Anne Ray’s debut collection of linked stories has the feel of a throwback. Mostly set in the analog, though not uncomplicated, time of the late 1990s, Ray uses 13 narratives to build something novelistic as her protagonist, Katie Hight, a 21-year-old college student on the verge of graduating, feels her life shift after the sudden loss of her father.
Is China Invincible?
Many in the West are convinced that modern China is an invincible regime. We watched China transition in just a few decades from a poor agricultural society into a manufacturing and industrial colossus. We witnessed Xi Jinping become the undisputed leader of China in 2013 and emerge even more powerful than Mao Zedong at the height of his reign. We know that Xi’s ultimate goal is for China to replace the United States as the world’s economic and military leader.
Oh What a Year! - Pittsburgh Quarterly
When the fab four’s plane touched down in Pittsburgh at 4:36 p.m. on Sept. 14, 1964, I was among the 4,000 screaming fans waiting to catch a glimpse of John, Paul, George and Ringo. When tickets went on sale that spring for $5.90, my aunt bought three: one for me, one for my cousin Linda, and one for her best friend Darlene. That’s when I began hatching a plan that would get me backstage before the Civic Arena show.
The Frick Brings "Once in a Lifetime" Exhibition to Pittsburgh
Home › Article › The Frick Brings “Once in a Lifetime” Exhibition to Pittsburgh In the business of collecting art, father and daughter, Henry Clay (1849-1919) and Helen Clay Frick (1888-1984), were a formidable duo. Helen was devoted to him, never changing Clayton, their Pittsburgh home, after her father decamped to New York. She chose to remain in his shadow, but he did include her early in his pursuit of the best art available.
Theater Roundup: Barebones and Kinetic Kick Off Strong Summer Season
One of the greatest joys in attending a theatrical performance is not knowing anything about the show beforehand. This blessing is generally squandered by reviewers who extol plot explication above all other critical duties.
Where Science Meets Play
Oscar Wilde once remarked, “Illusion is the first of all pleasures.” Welcome to the Museum of Illusions, Pittsburgh’s newest playground for both the young and the young at heart. Step into Instagram-worthy exhibits — infinity mirrors, spatial puzzles, and a plethora of mind-twisting fun await. Situated a stone’s throw away from PNC Park, this is not your typical museum experience.
Ed Simon and the Plight of Milton's Satan
The notion behind IG Publishing’s “Bookmarked” series is to allow contemporary authors to reflect on how a particular book influenced their journey to becoming writers. “Part autobiography, part literary criticism,” the series aims to guide readers through a deep dive of a single book.
Remembering the Beehive
A recent study by apartmentguide.com says Pittsburgh ranks sixth highest among 483 U.S. cities for coffee availability, based on population density and coffee establishments per square mile. It wasn’t always that way, before the iconic Beehive Coffeehouse opened in 1989 on East Carson Street.
Stuart Sheppard: Pittsburgh poets finding poetry in Pittsburgh
We tend to take it for granted that poets have some special, intrinsic genius. The belief that "poets are born, not made" has persisted in Western culture from the Romans until today. However, since the 1970s, a distinct segment of the creative arts industry has not agreed. There is much money to be made from the business of selling degrees to aspiring young writers, artists and performers who are perhaps not natural geniuses.
Painting the Audience: Quantum's "Scenes from an Execution" is Artistic Theater
Although we can’t prove that Freud said, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar,” we certainly can admit the wisdom in this adage, especially as it concerns the theater, where interpretation has turned into an industry for directors, dramaturgs, audiences, and especially, critics.
Lockett’s Short Stories Provide Authentic View of Appalachian Life
Learning an obscure Mauritanian language may not mean much around his central Pennsylvania hometown of Phillipsburg, but for Michael Lockett, now a transplanted North Sider, his time in the Peace Corps led to humility, empathy, and understanding different perspectives. Those three qualities color his narrative approach throughout a standout debut collection of short stories, In The Cut, in which he approaches often flawed characters by using a deft, humanistic touch.
The Fine Collection Follows and Augments a Long Line of Pittsburgh Benefactors
Andrew Carnegie provided the means to establish the Carnegie Institute, but he believed that it should be supported by those who use it. He wasn’t much of an art collector, so he left it to others to buy or give the grand building’s objects. The art museum’s collection grew very slowly at first, with purchases from the Carnegie Internationals, as suggested by the founder himself, and a few donations. Later gifts helped put it on the map.
Pittsburgh Public Theater's "The Importance of Being Earnest," A Sincerely Funny Play
There are certain plays we admire for their timeless quality, that somehow not only survive, but thrive over decades, centuries, and even millennia. “Oedipus Rex” and “Hamlet,” for example, have proven themselves in this respect, while others like “Waiting for Godot,” and “American Buffalo” certainly have the potential to join them.
An Enchanting Evening in Another World: Chatham Baroque Transports Us to the Realm of Bach
Several years ago, when I lived in Cambridge, I happened to sit next to an eccentric man on a flight to Boston, who had a large musical instrument occupying the seat next to him. Suspecting that it wasn’t a cello, I asked what it might be, and he said a viola da gamba. I replied, oh, like the instrument played by Sainte-Colombe (the legendary 17th-century violist and composer) in the film Tous les Matins du Monde (All the Mornings of the World)?
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