“I want them to be able to really dig in and create as much as they can,” said Pedro, who earned theater degrees from Russell Sage College in Troy and Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville and now lives in Brooklyn. At the beginning of rehearsals, she said, “I pulled Niya aside and told her, ‘I want you to give the actors permission to put themselves all over these characters. If they think something I have (a character) saying or doing something they don’t think they would say or do, change it.’”
Oh, and don’t expect a straightforward response to a question like, “How old are the children?”
“No,” said Pedro forcefully. “They’re some-aged children.”
Catastrophe Carnivale: An Evening of Beckett Shorts, Troy Foundry Theatre, Gasholder Building, Troy NY, USA
Conceived by David Girard.
Directed by Girard, Liz Carlson-Guerin, David Baecker, Katie Pedro, and Brenna Geffers. Featuring actors from the Troy Foundry Theatre.
Girard’s gamble in breaking up a classic, one-hour one-act Beckett play for intervals of shorter, more minor plays established its own theatrical rhythm, involving audience engagement, chance, and requiring repeated physical interaction with the theatrical space. In this reviewer’s instance, it was also a welcome opportunity to see Play in person for the first time: the three actors sunk to their shoulders in barrels (not urns), faces caked in dried mud, as if fresh from a crypt. The light before and above them cueing their speech (and silence), at least in this intimate space (perhaps four by three meters), took on a menacing character, as it was situated not simply in the “stage space occupied by its victims,” as Beckett directed, but in the audience’s space as well. Beckett’s two-word stage direction “Repeat play” was executed well, particularly in registering the rising “breathless quality” Beckett asked for. At Play’s conclusion, theaudience had to rise, turn its back on the half-entombed actors, and file out: the first of several subtle implications.
Catastrophe Carnivale: Play at Troy Foundry Theatre
Individually … each impresses for the commitment of the actors, the director's particular contribution to the evening as a whole and the mounting sense of dread that comes from seeing a bunch of Beckett plays in quick succession.
Troy Foundry Theatre has quickly established that it's good at this sort of thing – hitting us hard with bleak, pessimistic, even nihilistic glimpses of an unpleasant world. So far, though, the company also feels like a writing prodigy who keeps turning out similar, and similarly powerful, short stories. At some point soon, you want to see what they can do with a big fat novel.
Buffalo Buffalo at Exquisite Corpse Company
Buffalo Buffalo's director Katie Pedro brings out many voices from these significant others: the rational and the crazy, the strong and the flimsy, the determined and the indecisive.The cast deftly amplifies the unexpected nuances in this story. Adriana Covone’s costumes are a joy to behold, and help with decoding the story. Sonya Plenefisch’s sets make good use of the split-level gallery/theater space and contribute to the feeling of being gently torn apart.