Pitt Rep offers mind-bending night of plays

“All in the Timing: Words, Words, Words and Variations on the Death of Trotsky” and… “All in the Timing: Words, Words, Words and Variations on the Death of Trotsky” and “Eleemosynary”

Sept. 29 to Oct. 3 at 8 p.m.

Cathedral of Learning Studio Theatre

Admission $8 for Pitt Students

Mathematicians gave us the infinite monkey theorem, or the proposition that a random monkey, given enough time, could almost surely type out the entirety of “Hamlet.” The Soviet secret police gave us Leon Trotsky’s death by ice ax. Brainy wordsmiths gave us terms like “limicolous.”

These things might seem like meaningless trivia, but they are the stuff of drama for two Pitt graduate students. Dave Peterson, director of David Ives’  “Words, Words, Words” and “Variations on the Death of Trotsky,” both from Ives’ collection “All in the Timing,” and Grant Williams, director of Lee Blessing’s “Eleemosynary,” have drawn on the resources of the Pitt Repertory Theatre to create a triple-feature dramatic experience that Peterson promises will be “a very full evening.”

Perhaps, in the spirit of “Eleemosynary,” Peterson should have used the word “plenitudinous.” Between September 29 and October 3, he and Williams are staging three plays in the Cathedral of Learning Studio Theatre that aim to amuse, provoke and move audiences. Fundamental questions will be posed. Interfamilial relationships will be dissected. Trotsky will die seven times.

Those who only warm to conventional plots are advised to stay clear. Peterson’s plays move from exceptionally odd premises to critiques of cultural authority and historiography, and Williams’ play is a minimalist, nonlinear rendering of episodes in the history of a dysfunctional family.

“Words, Words, Words” imagines a scientist locking three monkeys — suggestively named Milton, Swift and Kafka — into a cage in hopes of demonstrating the validity of the infinite monkey theorem. Humorous monkey-to-monkey banter ensues, as there is much confusion over their assigned task.

“The monkeys keep asking, ‘What is Hamlet?’ And they mean it on a very practical level: ‘What is Hamlet?’” Peterson said.

”Words” pokes fun at literary canonization — or the saturation of culture with certain privileged texts. The play’s absurdist scenario reframes a question we have all likely asked ourselves: Why is this book so central to Western civilization — so central that even probability theory makes reference to it?

“Variations on the Death of Trotsky” does for theories of history what “Words, Words, Words” does for literary-canon making. Those worried that their Soviet history might not be up to the specifications necessary for enjoying the performance should know that Trotsky is significant to the play not for his involvement in the 1917 October Revolution but for his status as a generic historical figure.

As Peterson puts it, “Variations” is a blackly comedic case study in “how we get historical figures into certain narrative frames that help us make sense of a wealth of historical information.” Trotsky’s deaths are played for laughs, but the cumulative effect of the variations is a destabilization of history itself.

While less allegorical and less allusive, Williams’ “Eleemosynary” has by no means fewer facets. The title means “charitable,” and charity in the sense of unconditional compassion is a crucial element in Lee Blessing’s dramatization of mother-daughter discord.

Sparsely staged with three platforms signifying three generations, the play collapses a long timeline of family life into a few charged vignettes.

Dorothea, mother of Artie and grandmother of Echo, is an occultist, much to the embarrassment of her daughter. The ties between Dorothea and Artie fray so extensively that Artie flees from her mother’s presence, only to show up years later to give her daughter Echo over to Dorothea’s care when she discovers that her maternal instincts are lacking.

Echo grows up to exhibit a special aptitude for spelling — a crucial moment of the play occurs during a spelling bee — hence the peppering of the text with esoteric words like “dysphemism” (“an offensive expression deliberately substituted for a neutral one,” according to MSN Encarta) and “esurient” (hungry).

Part of what drives these women apart is their sense of alienation from one another. Dorothea is a lover of mysticism, Artie a lover of science and Echo a lover of language.

However, as Williams said of the play, “You always say when you’re younger that you don’t want to end up like your mom and dad, and you end up like them.” This warrants underlining, because as acute as the women’s lack of mutual identification may seem, the play is constantly calling attention to their shared traits and their subtle displays of affection. Of course, because the lines of division run so deeply, any balance achieved between these characters will always be tenuous.

“What I like about the play is that it ends almost as broken and unsatisfied as it begins,” said Williams. The pleasure of the play is in watching the characters’ resentments swell and fade, forever adjusting to the passage of time.”