Few people are as truly, splendidly Pittsburgh as Art Rooney Sr. Not just because he gave the Steelers to the world, though that doesn’t hurt, but also because he embodied qualities that make Pittsburghers the best people in the world: loyalty, toughness, humor, passion. (Disclosure: This reviewer, a third-generation Pittsburgher, is biased.)
In the one-man play “The Chief,” audiences get to have a (one-sided) conversation with Rooney as he prepares to receive an award at a Knights of Columbus dinner in 1976. While pacing around his office, with snapshots of history decorating its walls, he tells the story of his life, his faith, his city and the Steelers. “A life can go like the Immaculate Reception,” he says at the closing. “Mine sure did.”
This play has, by now, become history itself. It first opened in 2003 at Pittsburgh Public Theater with Tom Atkins playing Rooney. The production was such a success that Atkins reprised his role many times in the subsequent years on the O’Reilly Theater’s stage. In the past couple of revivals — as at Point Park University’s Pittsburgh Playhouse this week — Philip Winters has picked up Atkins’ ball and run it all the way into the endzone.
Listening to the words of playwrights Rob Zellers and Gene Collier feels very much like a post-dinner conversation with my grandfather, whose anecdotes and bon mots hearken back to the decades of Pittsburgh past. It’s not just the content, either; of course the play contains many references to the halcyon days of Forbes Field and Sophie Masloff, but it’s also about the tone and cadence of the recitation. There’s a slyness and confidence, always threaded with the pride that lifers in this city feel about being part of the fabric of its history.
Winters not only speaks in that same way, but when the story calls for it, he infuses the words with a softness and affection. It’s in the moments when Rooney speaks of his wife and children, but also on great display when he speaks of the Steelers, especially of legendary head coach Chuck Noll and Steelers great Franco Harris.
Winters moves deftly through the humorous and the serious, ruminating on Rooney’s North Side childhood in the early 1900s, his time as an athlete, his knack for horserace betting, his Catholicism and his time in politics. While football is a presence the whole time, this is a play that humanizes Rooney above all else.
Director Justin Fortunato infused a lot of movement into the play, despite it employing only one actor and one set. Winters wanders Rooney’s office, taking things off of the walls and from the desk, with the stage lights brightening and dimming as he moves about. The production’s showiest moment comes toward the end when Winters excitedly recounts the Immaculate Reception, the celebrated 1972 catch by Franco Harris. Suddenly stage lights give way to football stadium-style spotlights as the actor dashes across the stage like it’s turned into a field. Lighting designer Nathan G. Phillips made that switch particularly striking.
Scenic design coordinator Vivian Lipchak was thorough, positioning photographs, plaques and pictures all over the walls of the office set and bringing in furniture that looked worn-in but fitting and familiar. Same for costume designer Michael Montgomery, making sure that Winters looked dashing in the tuxedo the spends most of the play trying to avoid putting on.
The sound design by Conchetta Aronowitz is outstanding. The pre-show theater buzzed with the radio broadcast recordings of old Steelers games, and when Winters rolled down a projection screen to show the audience film of the Immaculate Reception, the sound swelled at just the right moments. And, as a cherry on top, the opening lyrics of Styx’s “Renegade” began playing over the speakers just after the curtain call.
At a fast-paced 80 minutes, this play is well worth the trip down memory lane, whether you’re a Steelers fan or not.
“The Chief” runs through Feb. 8 at Point Park University’s Pittsburgh Playhouse in Downtown Pittsburgh. Tickets: playhouse.pointpark.edu.