Philadelphia Weekly

Each year the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival invites artists from around the world to perform at the festival. More often than not, however, the best shows at the Live Arts are produced by local companies like Pig Iron Theatre Company, which is currently staging the company’s innovative exploration of American mythology Welcome to Yuba City.

The show is set over 24 hours at the Yuba City diner, a community gathering place in the windblown desert town of Yuba City, a place where giant Iguanas siesta in the street and tornadoes rake the landscape like giant “Hoovers from heaven.”

Seemingly the only town in America without a local Wal-Mart, Yuba is populated by a bunch of Marlboro men and Annie Oakley-type women.

Even within this narrow demographic of ruggedly individualistic cowboys and gals, the residents are a diverse group. There is a couple in the midst of a serious romantic tiff, a man determinedly attempting to communicate with creatures from outer space, a visually impaired cowgirl who seeks advice from a Native American named Eric, a pair of singing newlyweds, a trio of passionate Italian cyclists, a large gaggle of folks who may be FBI agents and a mysterious cafe owner who favors glamorous evening gowns and has a stash of gold bars hidden beneath the lunch counter.

In Deborah Stein’s text, the characters’ separate tales spin by like postcards on a carousel, providing us with snapshots of daily life in America’s rural west. However, though the stories are involving, the real appeal of City is its visual and physical dexterity.

Magnificently performed on one of the largest stages imaginable (approximately the length of a football field), the show’s visualize depiction of the American West evokes such films as No Country for Old Men and the westerns of director John Ford. But though City has a cinematic quality, it doesn’t deny its theater roots, and the show often plays like a comic spaghetti western penned by Our Town playwright Thornton Wilder.

Pig Iron founding member Quinn Bauriedel directs with a choreographer’s eye and a clown’s sense of humor, and Mimi Lien’s huge sprawling set allows us to view the action from both near and far.

Offering the audience a variety of intriguing visual perspectives, Bauriedel makes good use of the gigantic playing area—especially in the dance sequences that sprawl across the expansive parking lot adjoining the café (Christina Zani’s playful choreography is spectacular). Large enough to accommodate about 20 vehicles (the show utilizes two, a worn pick-up truck and a Chevy Maverick that’s a prime candidate for the “Cash for Clunkers” program), the grand scale effectively suggests the vast emptiness of this frontier town.

“Those things that we take to be real are mirages and those things we take to be mirages are real,” declares the spiritualist Eric. City occupies this “permeable space” between reality and illusion. It brings to life our shared myths and in doing so takes us on an exploration beyond the boundaries of fact and fiction.