Theatre in Review: Pitbulls (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater)

You can say one thing for Pitbulls: It features a setting and characters rarely seen in theatre; then again, there may be a reason for that. The action unfolds in a small town near the Ohio River and, especially as rendered in Andrew Boyce’s scenic design, it is a remarkably unsanitary place. The main set is a yard in the backwoods, filled with limp, hanging laundry, stools, baskets, random cement blocks, and a washing machine. There is also the moldy-looking exterior of a trailer. This is the home of Mary, who is regarded by the town as a kind of witch, and it is alarming to think that this filthy space is where she makes the homemade wine that provides her with her tiny income. (She notes that the wine derives its distinctive taste from the little drop of her blood that she adds to each bottle.) Mary lives with her teenage son, Dipper –“I named you after a constellation,” she tells him–who sells the wine at a highway off-ramp. When Pitbulls begins, Dipper is trying to blow up a dead squirrel; caught in the act, he becomes a suspect in much bigger crimes. Mary, whose hygiene reportedly needs work, is nevertheless a kind of man magnet. Virgil, the local sheriff, tells Dipper, “Your ma was the tastiest piece of God this side of God,” but currently Mary has taken up with Wayne, who doesn’t let his job as a minister sway him from adultery and consuming pornography. Wayne, who calls his fling with Mary “an unholy diversion” and “an unsanctified detour,” justifies his behavior by saying “it is better to speak your sins than hide them.” He woos Mary by bringing her wine goblets.