Quantum Leaps

There are other ways to spend a Friday night besides sitting in an empty swimming pool. But on this particular Friday night and in this big indoor pool, I can’t think of many other places I’d rather be.

I’m more above the pool than in it, perched on a set of risers built just for this occasion. The sound of lapping water emanates from the speakers and the slightly yellowed pool tiles still emit the sheen of an old set of pearls. At the other end, a broad set of stairs, also built for this occasion, descends along the entire width of the pool and at the bottom, a few chandeliers float (in a figurative sense), over the floor where an easel and footstool or two are placed. Just as I’m getting acclimated to this most unlikely setting, the lights dim, and a single spotlight shines on the face of an actress who is seated at the top of the stairs.

The play is about to begin.

Along with 100 or so others I am here in the pool room of the Braddock Library on opening night of Therese Raquin, presented by — who else — Quantum Theatre.

With each of Quantum’s contemporary productions set in various and intriguing locations throughout the city — like this one I’m in — theatergoers get a great and unusual opportunity to explore choice spots in our many outstanding and colorful neighborhoods. How many of us knew the Braddock Library was such a wealth of old-time beauty with its solid wood bookcases and soaring ceilings? Or that a pool, built long ago and unused since 1974, could be found within?

Come On Over to My House

More exploration awaits. After the play, cast, crew and audience are invited to the home of Braddock mayor John Fetterman, that big strapping young guy known for his neighborhood revitalization efforts as well as the Braddock zip code tattooed on his forearm. His spacious loft, housed within a building he reportedly bought for $5000, is painted dark mocha with architectural artifacts on one wall, tin tiles on another, and a spiral staircase that leads dramatically to the roof.  There, under starry skies, two freight containers are placed side by side, hoisted to by crane to serve as guest space. On the roof deck, the view spans the nearby fiery lights of the Braddock Steel mill.

While this evening holds an undeniable magic for these intrepid theatergoers, it’s not out of the norm for Quantum Theatre. For 17 years, Karla Boos, founder and director and actor, has staged plays in unusual venues, such as outside of the Frick Mansion of Clayton and inside of a horse barn in Hartwood Acres. Sometimes the space has been transformed, as in an abandoned industrial site; or  the show is set within the confines of a stunning interior, as in the Mellon Institute.

Boos, a kind, wildly creative and notably brave soul, has staged her singular productions in familiar settings, like the zoo where she staged Kafka's Chimp, and unusual settings, like the beautiful grounds of the Allegheny Cemetery where she produced the Tom Stoppard play, India Ink.

Quantum is proof that all the world’s a stage. Or at least all of Pittsburgh.

“Karla Boos created Quantum Theatre to produce and present experimental work that wasn't before seen in Pittsburgh via other companies and isn't often presented now,” says Sara Radelet, executive director of the New Hazlett Theatre (which is now producing experimental work) and chair of the Quantum board.

Radelet’s favorite elements of Quantum works are the unusual settings that are actually "cast" like one of the roles, she says. “There is something just right about the locations that puts the audience in the work, whether it is clear to them or not.”

For example, the staging of When the World Was Green was set in the Mattress Factory garden which utilized the lower level of the amphitheater space that's part of the garden design, says Radelet. “All action, set in prison, unfolded against the backdrop of a stone wall that loomed 15 feet over the actors.”

The Garden Theater was the location for The Collected Works of Billy the Kid, the opening work of the current season. “Much of what we know as the general public regarding Billy the Kid we have gathered from cinema over the years,” says Radelet. Ibsen's Wild Duck—a personal favorite of Boos’-- was set in a 19th century carriage house.  “As the characters lived their lives in front of the audience, we were simultaneously exposed to how stifled they must have felt, sitting in close quarters,” says Radelet. “Not uncomfortably, but just so you notice that no one has much room to move in their lives in the work.”

For the play, I.D., Boos relates how they suspended a cage approximating the prison cell of a character from a working crane in a pipe-cutting building in the Strip District. The result of the caged man on the crane moving in toward the audience was realistically frightening.

It’s a move hard to duplicate on stage.

And while the world of on-location holds its advantages, it also offers an unsettling lack of  predicatability. “The funniest sequence of events,” recalls Boos, “was buying a completely defunct trailer by the side of Rt. 51 in the dead of winter from a man named Snuffy for $400. The wheels and axels were so bad they could barely tow the thing to Lawrenceville to the Heppenstall Steel Mill where it was part of the set of Dog Face.”

They succeeded, of course, as they tend to do, went on with show and were then invited to produce the play in Madrid. What to do? ”We cut the trailer in half—bisected that sucker down the middle, shipped it to Spain, reattached it in a little 18th century building for our show then dumped it there,” Boos says.

All in a days’ work for Quantum Theatre.

Most recently, Boos raised the bar with a stunning production in Hartwood Acres where natural twilight of the outdoors was in sync with the arrival of dusk in the play. “I’m big on views and changing, natural light, I have to say, things we never have in theaters,” she notes. 

So it follows that she’s always seeking new venues in which to experiment to produce future works. The list is long and varied, from the rooftop of the convention center and the top of the parking garage across from the Warhol (quite luxe in the summer, she says), to the fish hatcheries at Rolling Rock and the top floor of PPG “with that 360 degree view through glass.”

Quantum theatergoers are a loyal bunch that has grown steadily over the years. They go wherever she leads. It’s a way to experience settings already familiar — Mellon Park, for instance — in a different perspective. After watching a witch-hunt in the twilight, you’ll never see the place in the same way. Go to enough of Quantum’s international productions and you’ll never see Pittsburgh in the same way again, either.

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Tracy Certo is editor of Pop City.

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Captions:

Karla Boos

Quantum's Production of Therese Raquin

Karla Boos at a dream site in Washington's Landing

Site of a former production on Liberty Avenue in The Strip

On the roof of the convention center

Therese Raquin courtesy of Quantum Theatre

All other photographs copyright Brian Cohen