Festival has more Shaw this year - Pittsburgh Post Gazette

NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE, ONTARIO -- That one year is so much like another in this pretty lakeside town, redolent of flowers and greasepaint, is part of its charm. But this year has this difference, that the Shaw Festival, well established as one of the great repertory theaters in the English-speaking world, is celebrating its 50th season.

The anniversary influenced artistic director Jackie Maxwell's planning of the bill of fare for the April-October season, now coming up on its midpoint. In celebration, she increased the number of plays by the festival's namesake to four out of 11 overall, but in such as way as to point as much forward as back.

On a mid-June trip a Post-Gazette theater group saw a varied four shows, all comedies, ranging from drama to musical to farce, illustrating the strength of the festival's performing ensemble of nearly 70. It just happened to include two of Shaw's own -- assuming you count "My Fair Lady," as why shouldn't you, when most of its dialogue and lyrics are lifted directly from his "Pygmalion"?

But the other two are also characteristic of the festival: a largely forgotten comedy by one of Shaw's less-remembered Irish contemporaries and an hour-long comic "lunchtime" gem that is more fun than even a champagne brunch could provide.

Lerner & Loewe (and Shaw), "My Fair Lady" (Festival Theatre)

This is the big one in terms of audience draw, but do not condescend to it on that account. Although the large festival theater was indeed packed, it was also evident that "My Fair Lady" strikes deeper chords when staged by a skilled acting company that would be just as comfortable doing "Pygmalion" itself.

Director Molly Smith, on leave from Washington's Arena Stage, refers to this in her program note about the pleasures of working with the festival company, "the pre-eminent experts on Shaw's language and ideas, on a musical about language and ideas." Still, there's no denying that Alan Jay Lerner (book and lyrics), although keeping so much Shaw, does indulge our sentimental hope (which Shaw would have none of) that Eliza and Higgins will end up together.

In other words, it isn't quite Shaw. But the flash of ideas about language and class that remain are given a vigorous, cut crystal airing by Benedict Campbell (Higgins), Patrick Galligan (Pickering) and Sharry Flett (Mrs. Higgins). And Deborah Hay (Eliza) and Neil Barclay (Doolittle), who carry much of Frederick Loewe's rich musical burden, never let their showmanship overcome their care for character and language.

If you go ...

General Information: 50th season, 10th under artistic director Jackie Maxwell. A colorful 64-page schedule and visitors' guide to shows, accommodations, restaurants and attractions is available from the Shaw Festival, Box 774, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada L0S 1J0; 1-800-511-SHAW (7429); www.shawfest.com.

Tickets: Prices vary according to theater, location in theater, day of week and play. The range is Canadian $32-$106 (U.S. $33.34-$110.45) with many shows discounted for students and seniors.

Accommodations: Through chamber of commerce (1-888-619-5981, niagaraonthelake.com). Similar services include the NOTL B&B Association (1-866-855-0123, niagarabedandbreakfasts.com); and BBSTAY NOTL and B&B Concierge (1-866-805-9188, bbstay.ca).

Festival Theatre (856 seats): "My Fair Lady" through Oct. 30; "Heartbreak House" through Oct. 7; "The Admirable Crichton" through Oct. 29.

Royal George Theatre (328 seats): "Candida" through Oct. 30; "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" through Oct. 23; "The President," lunchtime, through Oct. 9.

Court House Theatre (327 seats): "Drama at Inish - A Comedy" through Oct. 1; "On the Rocks" through Oct. 8; "Maria Severa" July 19-Sept. 23.

Studio Theatre (176 seats): "Topdog Underdog" July 19-Aug. 27; "When the Rain Stops Falling" Aug. 11-Sept. 17.

Other events and attractions: Backstage tours; pre-show chats; Tuesday Q&As Saturday Conversations; Sunday coffee concerts; backstage tours; Speed of Ideas Forum (Tony Kushner, Suzan-Lori Parks, Michael Billington (July 23-24); Autumn Experience (Sept. 21-23, Oct. 5-7); Four-Day Seminar (Aug. 11-14); many Shaw Workshops (various); student packages; theater and dining packages; theater and hotel packages; etc.

My own favorite revelation is Ms. Flett's stern but gracious realization of all the tartness Shaw gave her. At the Shaw Festival, "My Fair Lady" manages to be simultaneously a sumptuous musical and a very fine play with music.

Lennox Robinson, "Drama at Inish - A Comedy" (Court House Theatre)

One of the best reasons to go to the Shaw is to discover plays they have discovered for us. Robinson was a young man whom Yeats dragooned into running the Abbey Theatre, and he developed into a stalwart of the Irish literary revival, but "Drama at Inish" (1933) is his first play I can remember having seen.

Structurally, it's common enough, set in the living room of a small seaside hotel where the visitors and the locals interact. The occasion is the arrival in town of a "modern" acting company, creating the comic clash of worldly and provincial. Surprisingly, a nightly repertory of Ibsen, Strindberg, Turgenev and the like stirs festering dissatisfactions and sets the emotional balance of families and the town on edge.

All ends well, of course -- hence the reassurance of "comedy" following "drama" in the title. But Robinson touches on some serious issues. You can see the care with which he walks the fine line between parodic farce and something like Chekhovian sympathy in the two "star" actors, who are caricatures enough for the former but express enough artistic idealism for the latter.

What happens is that some members of the local audience begin to see their own lives in dramatic terms -- as artful constructs, you might say -- which suggests they are developing authorial agency, a sure challenge to the status quo. Turn over a long quiet stone and who knows what might wriggle out.

Speaking of acting companies, the Shaw itself offers the pleasures of a company exercised by repertory, and I particularly enjoyed seeing Mary Haney, who was playing ingenues just 29 years ago when I first headed north, who played Joan of Arc along the way, and who now plays the busybody spinster with comic flare and a good heart.

That's also the essence of this small but appealing play.

Shaw, "Candida" (Royal George Theatre)

This, Shaw's famous debate about marriage, is something finer. A supremely self-confident, progressive cleric, Morell, finds his perfect marriage to the beautiful, capable Candida challenged by a scruffy, ludicrously self-confident young poet, Marchbanks. Astonishingly, Candida is asked to choose between them -- spiritually, at least.

Marchbanks is just the sort of self-conscious Pre-Raphaelite that Gilbert & Sullivan made such fun of, but Shaw sees the eternal, solitary artist beneath his callow posing. Meanwhile, he sees that the successful Morell, such a sturdy mix of socialism and the Protestant pulpit, is completely dependent on his wife's mothering, not to mention the adoration of his secretary and Rev. Mill, his curate.

As the program essays (a collateral pleasure of the Shaw Festival) point out, "Candida" is Shaw's response to the challenge of Ibsen's "A Doll's House," and there are several ways to read it. The simplest is that it isn't women who need to be freed from the emotional dependence of marriage, but men. It also says something about Shaw's own relationships with women, including his mother and the actresses who enthralled him.

How you read it has a lot to do with Candida, and as played by the fetching but rather recessive Claire Jullien, she leaves the battlefield to the two men and to Shaw's ideas. Throw in her comic, conservative father, and those ideas have plenty of spokesmen.

In a stroke of color-blind casting, Morell is played by an African-Canadian, Nigel Shawn Williams, who manages to make his bluster manly, as it must be, and his collapse sympathetic. Wade Bogert-O'Brien's poet seems overly silly, but he develops the spine needed at the end of the play.

I found the debate about marriage very moving. It seems to suggest that women love us for our need of them, while we love them for accepting that. And that's just the start of Shaw's paradoxes.

Ferenc Molnar, adapted by Morwyn Brebner, "The President" (Royal George)

I reviewed this two years ago, when the Shaw staged it first, and I applaud its return. Exactly one hour long, it shows a captain of industry taking a young lout who's just been married by a rich young woman under his care, and given just 50 minutes before her parents arrive, remakes him. Not to spoil any suspense, he succeeds triumphantly, even allowing for all the time taken up by our laughter. Brilliant.

Senior theater critic Christopher Rawson is at 412-216-1944.

First published on July 10, 2011 at 12:00 am

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CMU grads rejoice in roles in 'Book of Mormon' - Pittsburgh Post Gazette

NEW YORK -- The line of smiling sweepstakes winners snakes in front of the Eugene O'Neill Theater, then winds up 49th Street and around Eighth Avenue. It's early on a Friday for a crowd in front of a Broadway theater, but these lucky few are in line for a one-time free performance of the Tony-crowned best musical of the year, "The Book of Mormon." The 2 p.m. show was a thank-you to the hundreds of fans who wait and hope for a limited number of lottery tickets but don't get in.

"There are people who flew in for this," marvels Tommar Wilson.

"Can you believe it? That's crazy," cast mate Rory O'Malley says.

The two Carnegie Mellon alumni are huddled in the dressing room Mr. O'Malley shares with Michael Potts, awaiting the arrival of co-star Josh Gad. Lighted mirrors cover two sides of the small, square room, and a black and white curtain hides the window side. A Barbie and Ken boxed set sits high on a shelf over Mr. O'Malley's side of the mirror.

"Josh is never late," says our redheaded host, who should know. Mr. O'Malley and Mr. Gad were CMU roommates who share the distinction of being Tony nominees -- Mr. Gad for best actor in a musical and Mr. O'Malley for featured actor.

Mr. Gad bursts into the room, downing a gulp from a bottle of water.

"It's a little mobbed out there," he says. "People tried to date-rape me!"

With his floppy dark curls and glasses, the cuddly Mr. Gad stands out not only in a crowd of fans but onstage, where he's the misfit among clean-cut Mormon elders and the Ugandans who it is their mission to convert. He plays Elder Arnold Cunningham, the nebbishy sidekick to fellow Tony nominee Andrew Rannells, the embodiment of Mormon perfection.

Mr. Gad and Mr. O'Malley had previous Broadway experience in "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee," but Mr. Gad has been best known for his screen roles. He returned to his Shadyside haunts last summer to film "Love & Other Drugs" (he played Jake Gyllenhaal's brother) and played a part in the Pittsburgh-set sitcom "Back to You."

He brought Mr. O'Malley into the mix for a recent return to his career launcher, as a "Daily Show" correspondent covering New York's Gay Pride parade. He was frequently recognized for his role in "Mormon" despite denials that he's not that guy.

Unlike his present company, Mr. Gad did not partake in much musical theater on his way to a 2003 BFA in Drama. "All the dancing in 'Mormon'? My God, it's the most I've done since my bar mitzvah," he says. His cast mates make a big deal over the fact that he was nominated for an Astaire Award, honoring Broadway's best dancers.

"If you can do theater ... if you can understand the most difficult texts from Shakespeare to Chekhov, then the other stuff comes easily," Mr. Gad says. "And that's the foundation that they give us [at CMU]. Whether it's voice or movement, it's such an unbelievably extensive four years, to understand how to use your body and all your tools."

Mr. O'Malley, who sings and dances up a storm in "Mormon," likens his college training to "musical boot camp." He came to Pittsburgh from Cleveland despite his family's misgivings. "I got through as a Browns fan, and the Steelers fans weren't too mean to me," he says.

Mr. Wilson, a Kansas native, says that after juggling five characters at a time in college, concentrating on one at a time comes easily. He has appeared on Broadway in a variety of musicals -- from "The Music Man" to "Hair" -- since 2000. He was late to "Mormon" compared to Mr. Gad and Mr. O'Malley, who have been involved in this show in some capacity for four years.

"I had seen a reading of the show ... maybe two years ago, so I knew kind of what I was getting into," Mr. Wilson said. "But the first day of rehearsal, they did a run-through for the three of us that weren't in the workshop and I didn't realize how [expletive] hilarious it was until that day. It blew my mind."

What it's about

The musical that The New York Times anointed "Heaven on Broadway" arrived with a pedigree that might have suggested another fate for "The Book of Mormon." "South Park" creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone and "Avenue Q" composer Robert Lopez created an always irreverent, often vulgar, sometimes sweet story with a traditional musical structure.

The story and lyrics skewer blind faith while rewarding the concept of faith and charity tempered with reason and a sense of humor -- plus many unprintable obscenities.

As a huge fan of another Parker/Stone parody, the marionette movie "Team America: World Police," Mr. O'Malley understood he was getting into hard-R material and jumped in wholeheartedly.

"I never actually have to say anything bad; I have to do something probably horrible with Hitler. We all have our moments," he says to nods and laughs all around. "I don't think anything of this is difficult because Bobby Lopez, Matt and Trey were so meticulous about getting the story right and making the characters so rich, that everything is earned. Every curse word, everything that's unpleasant to say, yeah, it's unpleasant, but it's part of the story that we're telling. We earn that moment on the stage."

There was some fear that the religious theme, coupled with the explicit language, would turn off audiences, but Mr. Gad has noted just a handful who have headed for the exits.

"There were two people in the front row, stage right, yesterday who I could not take my eyes off of because they were miserable, just miserable, and it was fascinating to me because, I mean, they couldn't be that miserable if they're staying until final bows, right? I think there are people who have struggled with the language, some of the themes, but at the end of the day, if you stay all the way through, you're going to leave with something valuable."

'Mormon' malfunctions

Josh Gad's Arnold Cunningham has a penchant for stretching the truth and making pop-culture references, but when Arnold has trouble with the name Nabulungi (the character played by Tony winner Nikki M. James), a bit of Josh comes to the surface. The actor predicts he has come up with 25 to 30 names to represent Nabulungi, including Neosporin, Necrophilia ...

"My favorite was Nipple Cream, but that's one I've only used once," he answers.

"My favorite was Nathan Lane," Mr. O'Malley says.

"One day it was Nordstrom and Nordstrom Rack ..."

"That one really killed me," Mr. Wilson says.

When the question comes up about onstage mishaps, the trio takes over the interview.

"Josh, pray tell," his cast mates demand.

"There were two days in a row where a song I'd been singing for over a hundred performances I decided I no longer knew," Mr. Gad says. Cast members are held accountable for even one missed or added word. So watching his co-stars faces "just tore me to shreds. There was a bunch of this [he shakes all over] onstage, just convulsing bodies."

"Just yesterday my shoe fell off, my nametag fell off, I couldn't get my outfit," Mr. O'Malley says. He explains that his nametag didn't survive his quick change from the angel Moroni to Elder McKinley.

"We were all [thinking], 'Rory's making a fool of himself,' " Mr. Gad says, laughing.

"Josh, pray tell," his castmates demand.

"There were two days in a row where a song I'd been singing for over a hundred performances I decided I no longer knew," Mr. Gad says. "And so I just kept screwing up the same thing over and over, and it just became the most difficult five minutes of my life because to look at my co-stars who are just so supportive and not cracking any smiles, just tore me to shreds. So there was a bunch of this [he shakes all over] onstage, just convulsing bodies."

"Just yesterday my shoe fell off, my nametag fell off, I couldn't get my outfit," Mr. O'Malley says. He explains that his nametag didn't survive his quick change from the angel Moroni to Elder McKinley, the man with a nametag.

"We were all, Rory's making a fool of himself," Mr. Gad says laughing.

"Oh, were you?" Mr. O'Malley says.

After hundreds of performances, even a single word missed or added can become a big sin among the cast. "Everyone holds you so accountable," Mr. Gad says.

Wardrobe malfunctions are frequent, and Mr. Wilson is shy at first about revealing his, but finally relents. "My problems all center around my big penis in the second act. That's the only thing I ever have issues with."

The guys banter matter-of-factly about Mr. Wilson's troubles with a contraption worn by male ensemble members during the number "Joseph Smith American Moses."

Mr. Gad then offers he has a favorite moment with Mr. Wilson, who also plays a guard to a violent general with an unprintable name.

"Every day we have this little intimate moment that nobody else knows about. When he comes out with the gun and he's wearing these gold bullets, I go, 'Beautiful necklace, Tommar.' " Mr. Gad then gestures stroking the bullets.

"I go, 'I've got a gun,' " Mr. Wilson says, smiling.

Surreal Tonys

"The Book of Mormon" received 14 Tony nominations and won nine awards, the most by any show on Broadway this season.

"It was the best night of our lives," Mr. O'Malley says of the ceremony last month.

"It was magical," Mr. Gad chimes in. "The fact of the matter is that Rory and I were college roommates and then to be able to stand there and attend something we used to watch together on our couch was pretty surreal."

"I thought, I'm not going to believe it until we're actually there, but the whole thing has happened and I still ... feel like it was the fake Tonys and they just told us to be there," Mr. O'Malley says.

While Mr. Gad and Mr. O'Malley waited and watched from their seats in the Beacon Theatre, Mr. Wilson took part in "Mormon's" Tony number, "I Believe."

He wasn't sure how the audience would react to the song without the context of the show. "Are they going to laugh? Is it going to be funny? And it was even more of a rock concert at the Tonys. They were screaming for the last 20 seconds of the song. It was unbelievable."

With people applauding as nominations were announced, neither Mr. Gad nor Mr. O'Malley heard their names. (Norbert Leo Butz and John Larroquette won in their categories). But they use words like "insane" and "amazing" when recalling co-star Ms. James' emotionally charged speech while accepting her best featured actress Tony.

Neither of the nominees in the room displays disappointment that he has no statue to show for the night.

"I think you'd have to be some kind of gluttonous crazy person to walk away from a Tonys show with nine awards and be like, 'Oh, we didn't get enough.' That best musical Tony is for everyone in this building who has worked so hard," Mr. O'Malley said.

"When something like that happens and it's celebrated in one night and it happens at one of the things you watched as a child and created your dreams around being a part of, it's totally surreal. ... Maybe one day I'll believe that it happened."

Here to there

"I've been in New York for 11 years now, I graduated in '99. I don't think I've been in a show that hasn't had at least one other Carnegie Mellon person," Mr. Wilson says. "There are so many designers -- Peter Hylenski, he was nominated for a Tony this year [for sound], we went to school together."

Mr. Wilson was at the Oakland campus just before the Purnell Center was opened. He says there was no film studio, no website and "I remember Greg Lehane [professor of drama and music at Carnegie Mellon] would tape us with a little recorder."

Times have changed, and now performances from CMU to Broadway are readily available on YouTube for all to see, or, if you're lucky, you can score a ticket to an award-winning show featuring a handful of folks with local ties.

"To us it's such a moment of pride because we get to represent the success of that community," Mr. Gad says. "I remember Rory and I going to see Patrick Wilson in 'The Full Monty' and saying wow, that's one of ours. You take such pride in that. For the three of us to be sitting here representing one of the most successful shows of the season is a pretty incredible thing."

"The Book of Mormon" is scheduled at the Eugene O'Neill Theater, 230 W. 49th St., New York, through September 2012.

Sharon Eberson: seberson@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1960. Read more about theater in the OnStage blog.

First published on July 10, 2011 at 12:00 am

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Shooting victim identified Homewood-Pittsburgh Post Gazette

By Deborah D. Todd, Pittsburgh Gazette

Pittsburgh police identified a man who shot after threatening a family Homewood with a pistol on Friday.

Timmothy Bazemore, 20, of Homewood, faces several charges today after an incident that threatened to shoot an unidentified man and several members of his family on his mother's House in 1400 in North block of Murtland Avenue.

The man said he called police in Mr. Bazemore earlier in the day to report that he was loitering in large part to the family. He told police that Mr. Bazemore fired after returning home with a gun at the end of the day.

Police found Mr. Bazemore with multiple gunshot wounds in the block of Mount Vernon Avenue 6900 and was transported to UPMC Presbyterian. In surgery, was taken in critical condition.

Mr. Bazemore faces charges of arms, four counts of aggravated assault, vagrancy and hovering, terrorists threats and simple assault. Additional charges may be pending.

First published in July 9, 2011, 6:43 pm

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Hugs and tears: flows of sadness over the funerals of two brothers killed in fire-Pittsburgh Post Gazette

/Lake Gazette Fong

A weeping meets Carmen Pollard, right, grandmother KiDonn Pollard, 7; KrisDon Pollard, and 4; After his funeral in the seventh-day Adventist Church Hillcrest seventh day in the Hill district.

KiDonn and KrisDon were restless young brothers who shared the soccer games, action figures and the cult of the family and friends.

Inseparable in the life and death, was a white coffin and single that cut short the boys shared on Friday, as the same distressed for the family and friends filled a church in the District of Hill to mourn two lives in a fire that left many questions.

Flames swept the apartment North Versailles where KiDonn Pollard-Ford, 7 and 4, KrisDon Pollard-Williams, lived with his mother, Kiaira Pollard, whose moans sounded on a somber tone as body closed the coffin of their children and a pastor urged to find strength in God.

' In times like these when we suffer, normal what we ask is, "if only God could have been there, why this happened? ' "The Reverend Kurtley Knight of seventh-day Adventists Hillcrest said the tearful crowd". Why think bad things to good people? Why it seems that we always around people who love die? Why two boys, who had experienced any real life? "

As these mourners questions haunted, Detective of Allegheny County police attempted to answer many of your own, to learn why the brothers were home alone, hidden in his room during the fire of June 30. Police found KiDonn dead under a pile of clothes; KrisDon, which was responding in a bed, died the next day.

Police gave the Hall family that mourn their losses Friday but Lieutenant Andrew Schurman unit of murder said detectives soon bring criminal charges in the deaths of children.

"It will be loaded, the person responsible to leave them alone," said, although he did not elaborate. The cause of the fire in the early morning also remain unknown, but Fire Marshal County Deputy Chief Don Brucker said Friday probably began in the master bedroom near an air conditioning unit for the researchers expect to discuss next week.

But responses could not possibly facilitate wave of pain that washes through the Church, where pastor reminded the boys as "perfect diamond to their parents and grandparents."

Brother curious KiDonn-"smidget", friends of the family-Green Valley primary school won a straight and he was tapped to participate in a program for Gifted students. He played Pee Wee football at school, but he was not adverse to share the game with his younger brother, KrisDon.

The youngest son, whose loved ones have called him a "Fat", as Power Rangers and brought joy to neighbors as he reacted in his apartment complex.

KrisDon's father, Christopher Williams, said that "they were pretty babies". "They were best friends."

Grandmother Carmen Pollard said that the boys were never apart.

"Take one", he said, "you have to take another."

Its proximity will ask funerary Roland j. Coston-Criswell the grant to the family of special applications that share a coffin. It is your business to offer resistance and lack of comfort, but confided that services of the boys were with him. Mr. Coston-Criswell also oversaw funerals of children killed in a succession of home fire Larimer Winslow Street, but the case of the brothers was more taxes: your family is your friends.

"Is mentally very difficult with children this age," said after returning from the grave. "Really to see the bodies and heard the story is harrowing heart."

Sadie Gurman: sgurman@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1878.

First published in July 9, 2011, at 12:00 am

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For the first time home run potential customers of pirate McKenry past Cubs, 7-4-Pittsburgh Post Gazette

It is true, the pirates are young and inexperienced. Some of them are learning quickly the major league level. But they all have fundamental skills of baseball, including the knowledge of what to do with a hanging breaking ball with two runners on base.

Michael McKenry was found in the same situation on Friday night when Cubs closer Carlos Marmol left a slider, batting eighth tom, sitting on a shirt for him.

"Everybody knows his Mo, he has a ball of energy and a pretty good slider," McKenry said. "Tried only for battle, a ball game."

---

Today

Match: Cubs vs. pirates, 07:05 pm, PNC Park.

TV, radio: As a result, WPGB-FM (104.7) sports.

Version: RHP Ryan Dempster (5-6, 4.99) vs. RHP Kevin Correia (3.74 11-6).

Key Confrontation: Correia vs half of infield puppies. Starlin Castro and Barney Darwin are a combined 5 15 (. 333) against him.

Note: The belt is 2-0 with a 1.35 ERA in two games against the Cubs this season.

the PBC Blog

Datasheet

Statistics

Classification of

Minor League report

---

Put into play for a moment, but soon he was out of the picture again. McKenry hit a three-run home run in the left field seats that had crowned a streak of four eighth inning and gave the pirates a 7-4 victory against the Cubs PNC Park.

A crowd of 37.140 saw first League home run McKenry and then he instigated in dugout for a curtain call.

"That is a child sleep little me", he said. "See Cal Ripken and renowned people do". I have one and I have 26 years, I have a little over two months in the big leagues. "Is awesome".

McKenry made a strike call and then overthrown in six consecutive releases. He had beaten the tom eighth folded down.

"I don't know if ever I saw someone hitting a ball than before," said James McDonald. "He has it all."

The chain of events that set the home run began with the pirates in the end, 4-3 in the eighth. Pinch-hitter Matt Diaz walked and Pedro Ciriaco pizca ran to him and then broke up a potential double play ball land of Neil Walker. Lyle Overbay in particular and the Cubs had replaced Sean Marshall, who was beaten and fell to 5-3 with marble.

Josh Harrison in his 24 years, in particular to the Centre of rated Walker and tie the score before grilled McKenry.

"Hit it hard with the screws enough balls", McKenry Harrison said. "He has been putting some good swings on the ball". Displays only. "It just caught up with his plan and he received a pitch and only took".

Daniel McCutchen (3-1) got the win in relief and Joel Hanrahan turned his 26 save, striking out two in the ninth.

The eighth had overshadowed the beginning of McDonalds. He allowed three runs on 52/3 innings, but his pitch count was high this time 99.

"Hitting batters but together sometimes good changes for the bat good pitches that improper shutdown," said McDonald.

Chris Resop allowed close an RBI double to Alfonso Soriano, although executions were a charge of McDonald's and José Veras allowed run on two hits and two walks in two-thirds of an inning, but kept the bullpen.

"Nobody broke," said the Manager Clint hurdle of pirates.

Marlon Byrd and Aramis Ramirez had his way with pirates pitching staff, going a combined 5 to 7 with four runs scored and a home run. Ramirez has seven homers in their last 11 games and 15 in the season.

The Cubs had a 3-2 lead in the sixth with a double of Soriano, but Andrew McCutchen tied the score in the bottom half with a solo foursquare, its 13.

The Cubs took the lead again in the eighth when Byrd walked and Soriano doubled on the wall of Clemente in right field, giving to the corridors of the Cubs in the second and third with one out. With the infield in Darwin Barney on Earth a single through the hole between short and third, marking the Byrd and getting ahead, the Cubs 4-3.

Daniel McCutchen relieved to see this time and left the bases loaded and Starlin Castro fly off.

Aggressive baserunning, timely hitting and a good balance of bat erased the deficit.

"Caught a as good as he can attack," said McKenry run obstacle.

McKenry, joined the pirates through trade and was a rotation of the captors of fill for the injured Chris Snyder and Ryan "Sam" Doumit never shuffling. His defense earned him praise. On Friday, his bat came to the party.

"Principles when it came to battle type slowly, pressing for a success," said McDonald. "It was always positive, picking up in the times where we should probably collect it." "It's really nice to see him succeed as this".

First published in July 9, 2011, at 12:28

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