Barebones’ ‘Skeleton Crew’ Rattles with Relevance

With their jobs on the line, Faye (Etta Cox), Shanita (Saige Smith), and Dez (Brenden Peifer) can only play the hands they’ve been dealt.

There’s something quite fitting when a theater company called barebones productions stages a play called Skeleton Crew. Consider too that the play’s story about four employees in a sheet metal fabrication plant is directly across the street from the Edgar Thomson Works, Carnegie’s one-time largest mill still making steel (yet with far fewer human beings than were formerly necessary). No less uncanny, the building that houses barebones’ theater was at one time a car dealership and the very work for which the four characters of Skeleton Crew earn their livelihood is wholly dependent on car sales. Thus, “fitting” may be too slight a word for this production. Rather, I’d suggest describing Skeleton Crew as formidable, forceful or even faith-fulfilling. Alliterations aside, this is strong theater.

A Worried Workplace

The year is 2008. It’s not a good one for America’s economy, nor for this automotive parts plant near Detroit. Faye (Etta Cox) is approaching her 30th year on the sheet-stamping line. Her younger co-workers are Shanita (Saige Smith,) single and pregnant, and Dez (Brenden Peifer) who wants to start his own mechanic’s shop. Reggie (Richard McBride) is their foreman and he dutifully lays down the laws of the plant. As with any work crew that regularly retreats to their break room, conflicts arise. Faye sneaks cigarettes. Dez hits on Shanita. Someone’s eating Shanita’s saved food. And Faye accuses Dez of stealing parts from the line. Yet, overshadowing this crew’s petty differences is the looming likelihood of the plant’s closure. Clearly, Reggie won’t admit to anything his superiors may have told him. And Faye has no appetite to face those fears. She likes to say, “If ‘if’ was a fifth, we’d all be drunk.” 

Weary of an impending shut down, Faye reasons with her Foreman, Reggie (Richard McBride), to keep the production line moving.

Deeply Dramatic

To be clear, Detroit playwright Dominique Morisseau presents us with many meaningful issues. We witness sexual harassment, addiction, gender prejudice, homelessness, gun violence, class struggle, and the list goes on. Morisseau’s characters help weave a scrim through which we see the shadows of power and indifference to the working class. It’s not a new vision, but here it’s particularly oppressive and inevitable. Day in and day out, the shadows get darker and darker still. Punching in and clocking out, the crew’s fears grow denser and denser until truth must explode. This is riveting work; Morisseau’s play pounds relentlessly to its raw finish.

Characters That Work

As the elder “statesman” of the break room, Faye, played deftly by Etta Cox (Pittsburgh’s beloved jazz vocalist and acclaimed veteran of Broadway and film,) commands the moral high ground. She’s been a driving force, a union rep, a model worker, but life outside of the plant has tricked her. Cox shows us in body and voice that inertia, not risk, is what kills us all. Morisseau gives her character a powerful soliloquy on how to keep moving, a lesson that Cox both delivers and embodies to great effect.  

Hope hangs in the balance as Shanita considers Dez’s dream of opening his own mechanic’s shop.

Even in her last weeks of pregnancy, Shanita, lovingly portrayed by Smith, is compelled to earn every dime until delivering her fatherless child. Smith’s role gives us faith we see nowhere else and Smith’s performance is no less singular to behold; she is a joy to watch. McBride may have the hardest role playing the loyal company foreman who has risen from the sheet stamping line to manage his former co-workers. McBride delivers both assertiveness and empathy; he is wonderfully comfortable on stage and commands the authority his character must deliver. Young in his career, McBride promises to go far. And, as Dez, the somewhat shifty dreamer, Peifer is a standout. His is an enigmatic character, one that takes most of the heat in conflict and who must dodge the bullets of prejudicial suspicions. In turn, he fires off a magical spray of emotion and stoic steadfastness. Peifer is another young actor Pittsburgh audiences will do well to follow.

Direction That Delivers

Of course, no play of this integrity can succeed without great direction. Tomé Cousin delivers a solid evening of dramatic intrigue, facile exposition, and logical diatribe. It’s a small set on which to work (well designed and executed by Tony Ferrieri,) and it’s an intimate space that demands subtlety so close to the audience. Cousin pulls it all off with powerful pacing and meaningful motivation. Because he is also a renowned dance choreographer, Cousin delivers genius, too. During scene changes and time interludes, he has employed Mario Quinn Lyles (also a revered Pittsburgh dancer) to embody the machinations of this woeful workplace. Further explanation would spoil the brilliance of both artists’ creativity. Let’s just call it a sweet cherry on top of a delicious sundae, one too large to eat without feeling sick.

In silhouette, Mario Quinn Lyles syncopates the deft skills of assembly line workers.

Artistic Director Patrick Jordan is in full stride. Barebones’ production of David Mamet’s Buffalo Nickel was a recent smash hit. And Skeleton Crew has all the same promise. Of course, no theater company can achieve its dreams without capable creative collaborators. To be credited for exceptional work are lighting designer Andrew David Ostrowski, stage manager Claire Durr, Tony Award-winning sound designer Robert Kaplowitz who, along with J. Keys, contributed original music, and, mentioned earlier, set designer Tony Ferrieri with yet another astounding dramatic workspace. Sound technician Andrew Michel, props designer (and dresser) Rikkee Lee Rose, technical director Eric Papineau and special effects designer Steve Tolin deserve equal credit.

Worth the Drive

On few other stages, Skeleton Crew might carry the provenance this production distinctly owns. Any play about labor performed in Braddock is worth popular attention. But what drives America is clearly the sweat and fears of a fickle economy. Get in your car now and see Skeleton Crew. Onstage now through March 10. Barebones productions, 1211 Braddock Avenue, Braddock.

The cast of ‘Skeleton Crew’ in front of U.S. Steel’s Edgar Thompson Works.  (Photo: Duane Rieder)

Photos: Jeff Swensen

C. Prentiss Orr writes about theater for Entertainment Central. He has worked in theater management and has also taught theater.

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