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PEOPLE & ARTS Monday 27 May 2019

Theater company brings Shakespeare to steel

By KRISTEN DE GROOT among the only surviving
Associated Press pre-World War II blast fur-
For more than a century, naces in the United States,
steel mills churning along and are designated Na-
Pittsburgh’s three rivers tional Historic Landmarks.
helped define the region as They were also the site of
one of the world’s largest one of the nation’s most
steel-making capitals until dramatic and deadly labor
the collapse of the industry conflicts. In 1892, a labor
in the 1980s. Now, ruins of dispute at the Homestead
the industry loom massive Works turned violent when
and rusting, a reminder of striking workers battled
power and loss. Where bet- armed guards, a pivotal
ter to stage a production of episode in the history of the
Shakespeare’s “King Lear?” country’s labor movement.
Quantum Theatre is using That history also fits into the
the backdrop of the Car- violence of the play, Boos
rie Furnace for its produc- said.
tion of the bard’s bleakest After Act 1 in the shadow
tragedy, which tells of grief of blast furnace, the audi-
and madness, family values ence — armed with flash-
gone wrong and a power- lights — takes a quarter-
ful king brought low. mile walk to a garden amid
“Pittsburgh was once a In this Saturday, May 18, 2019, photo actor Jeffrey Carpenter, portraying the character King Lear, a circle of trees, surrounded
giant in that particular performs in the opening scene of the Quantum Theatre production of Shakespeare’s tragedy at by acres of nature that’s re-
space. You can’t be at the site of the old Carrie steel producing blast furnace in Swissvale, Pa. claimed itself at the site. It’s
the site without feeling the Associated Press meant to evoke the English
enormity of industry and and founder of the theater what was once the thrum- iconic structures. The fur- countryside.
the enormity of the fact company. “All very won- ming heart of the Home- naces along the Mononga- “You go from a kind of maj-
that the industry collapsed derful metaphors for King stead Steel Works, which hela River were built in the esty to a circle of trees in
and we were stripped as a Lear.” produced steel used in the 1880s and operated until this wilderness, and experi-
region of this power,” said The Carrie Furnaces are the Empire State Building, the 1982. Only furnaces No. 6 ence the end of the play so
Karla Boos, artistic director last remaining structures of Brooklyn Bridge and other and No. 7 remain. They’re intimately,” Boos said.q