Home > Theater Reviews > Archives > 2007 > April
April 2007
Meet Bill Fennelly
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Catch my in-depth profile of the energetic new Actor’s Express artistic director in Sunday’s Arts & Books section.
Meanwhile, here are the plays he has picked for his first season.
“Dark Play or Stories for Boys” by Carlos Murillo. Fennelly saw the play at the just-ended Humana Festival of New American Plays. “It’s sexy and scary and it deals with the lightning fast, changing pace of the world that we live in, that technology has just changed the rules of the game and that we as a society have not actually caught up, morally, legally, personally.” Freddie Ashley directs. Aug. 9-Oct. 6.
“The Fantasticks.” Fennelly’s directing debut as the new artistic chief.”We are calling it the adult version of ‘The Fantasticks.’ It ain’t yo mama’s ‘Fantasticks.’” Oct. 28-Nov. 24.
“Octopus,” world premiere, by Steve Yockey. A post-“Angels in America” look at gay relationships, isolation and medical catastrophe. “Steve calls it a post-modern love story. I feel in a lot of ways it’s the play that Actor’s Express has been waiting for for 20 years.” Jan. 27-Feb. 23.
“Piece,” a world premiere musical by Scott Alan and Tara Smith. “It’s about a woman returning home after the death of her mother and encountering her life, where she is and how she got there.” March 16-April 12. Directed by Daniella Topol. For more info: Piecethemusical.com
“When Something Wonderful Ends” by Sherry Kramer. Another Humana find. “It’s set in the old playroom of this woman’s [childhood] home. Through the packing up of her extensive Barbie collection, she unpacks the issues of global conflict, the Middle East and the petroleum crisis and the fact that we are on this fast-track to global meltdown.” Fennelly directs. May 4-May 31, 2008.
“Hedwig and the Angry Inch.” Ashley directs this “reinvention” of the fabulous John Cameron Mitchell musical that rocked the Express in the summer of ‘03. June 22-July 19, 2008.
Information: 404-607-7469; www.actors-express.com
Permalink | |
I ran the New York marathon
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
No kidding. I have a little button that they handed me at the finish.
Of Tom Stoppard’s trilogy, “The Coast of Utopia,” that is.
Oh, come on! You did not think I was talking about THAT marathon, did you? Heavens, no. I ran around Central Park when I was in New York, April 18-23, but most of the time I was in the theater.
In fact, for most all of last Saturday, I watching Stoppard’s magnum opus about 19th-century Russian intellectuals and the dawn of socialism. I began with “Voyage” at 11 a.m. on a sparkling crisp morning at Lincoln Center — and wrapped up around 11 p.m. after catching “Shipwreck” and “Salvage.”
I spent nine hours in the dark — with 46 actors playing 70 roles, spanning the time period from 1835-1868. A very long journey, indeed, but a starry, satisfying, unforgettable and wholly opulent one. “Starry” as in the constellation of Ethan Hawke, Billy Crudup and Brian F. O’Byrne. “Opulent” as in sets by Bob Crowley (“Aida,” “The History Boys”) and Scott Pask (“The Pillowman”).
I’m talking about images that got applause before a single word was spoken. I’m talking about an enormous crystal Onion Dome hanging from the ceiling like some Dale Chihuly chandelier. I’m talking about a tableau vivant representing what looked liked hundreds and hundreds of serfs. (Call it the magic of theater.)
This soul-bondage is Stoppard’s undying theme and metaphor. Freedom is the passion that consumes his characters. Born rich, owners of thousands of “souls” (their term for serfs), these were the upper-class Russian land owners who knew the old order was crumbling.
Marx and Turgenev are in the play. Pushkin makes a cameo or two. But Stoppard writes around a real-life triumvirate of lesser known figures: the literary critic Vissarion Belinsky (Crudup); the wildly erractic political scoundrel Michael Bakunin (Ethan Hawke) and the fabulously wealthy Alexander Herzen (O’Byrne), who had to smuggle his money from Russia to Paris to London, and had a tragic personal life.
These were the figures for whom the word “intelligentsia” was coined, and Stoppard is in his element on this vast landscape of ideas and poetry. There’s a Chekhovian touch to his epic, a good bit of George Sand and sex (she was worshipped by this milieu) and maybe a touch of George Eliot.
OK . So was it a taxing marathon? Yes and no. There were moments when I forgot I was watching a play - just like there are moments in the meditative state of running when you forget. But part two - “Shipwreck” — drags, and O’Byrne’s Irish cadences clash with the other accents — at first. Eventually, the Tony Award winner (“Frozen”) finds his way and turns his complex character into something kind of loveable.
Consumer tip: If you only have time to see one of the plays, see part one, “Voyage.” If you can see two, read the synopsis of “ Shipwreck” in your program and get a ticket for “Salvage.”
As for marathons, if you must journey 26 miles, take a car. I’d rather be sitting still, with Stoppard. Seeing the trilogy is no more taxing than taking in a full day at Charleston’s Spoleto Festival, and the atmosphere around Lincoln Center and its nearby restaurants was just as festive.
Through May 13. The Vivian Beaumont at Lincoln Center. 800.432.7250. lct.org
Permalink | |
‘All Shook Up!’ @ Fox Theatre
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW. Grade: C
An old jukebox in a generic, Eisenhower-era American small town hasn’t lifted its needle in years. Then one day a handsome stud with a guitar and a pair of blue-suede shoes roars into view on a motorcycle, and suddenly, as if by magic, the sleepy burg is transformed into a tangle of romantic misadventures whipped up by the songs of Elvis Presley.
Thank you vurray much, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to “All Shook Up!” — the inanely concocted, endlessly derivative jukebox musical by Joe DiPietro playing the Fox Theatre through Sunday.
Mercifully, the flat-footed 2005 Broadway show can’t claim a single Elvis impersonator. Nor can the hodgepodge of familiar farcical devices and references to pre-existing musicals summon anything like an original idea or bit of insight. Borrowing heavily from such disparate sources as “Mamma Mia!” and Shakespeare, this tale of unrequited love, mistaken identities and last-minute revelations is as crisscrossed as a plate of spaghetti and as easy to see through as display window at Macy’s.
What redeems this tediously constructed exercise in 1950s nostalgia are the incandescent performances of a hard-working ensemble of character actors, dancers and singers — plus the striking visual handiwork of director Christopher Ashley and designers David Rockwell (sets), David C. Woolard (costumes) and Donald Holder (lighting).
On opening night, understudy Josh Franklin stepped into the lead role of bike-ridin’ roustabout and disciple of love Chad (normally played by Joe Mandragona) and wore it as securely as he did his tight-fitting black jeans. Franklin was ably assisted by the wonderfully twangy Jenny Fellner as lovestruck grease monkey Natalie; Wally Dunn as her sadsack father, Jim; and Beth Glover as the repressive Mayor Matilda Hyde. “Fools Fall in Love” is the conceit of this over-embroidered plot, which makes “Twelfth Night” seem as simple as “Alice and Jerry.”
Just released from the slammer (“Jailhouse Rock”), Chad discovers his motorcycle is making “jiggly-wiggly noises” and seeks the help of girl mechanic Natalie, who is suddenly making little involuntary squeals of delight. Meanwhile, sweet-nerdy Dennis (Dennis Moench) is enamored of Natalie — but also making little involuntary squeals of delight over the sparky newcomer. Chad takes a shine to curvaceous museum director Miss Sandra (Susan Anton), who goes gaga over Ed, who is actually Natalie in disguise as Chad’s latest sidekick.
Got all that? Hold on. There’s more.
The mayor’s son Dean (Brian Sears) drops out of military school to pursue his sweetheart, Lorraine (Tracee Beazer), while Lorraine’s mom, Sylvia (Jannie Jones), goes after Natalie’s dad. Along the way, we get shades of “Hairspray” (an overcoiffed villainess and a theme of interracial harmony), “Mamma Mia!” (a paternal mystery and a blizzard of nuptials) and “Grease” (leather jackets and sockhops).
On the plus side, there are nifty sequences involving life-size statues (“Let Yourself Go”), a chapel bursting with brides and grooms in sartorial splendor and Sergio Trujillo’s giddy and infectious choreography.
Sitting through “All Shook Up!” is like chewing bubble gum and inhaling cotton candy at the same time. Binging on silliness and empty glee, you find yourself warmly surrendering to the nonstop nonsense. You won’t burn a lot of intellectual calories, but you won’t do yourself any harm, either. In the end, love conquers all — with a little help from blue-suede shoes.
THE 411: 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday. 2 p.m. Saturday. 1 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. Sunday. Through Sunday. $19-$55. Broadway Across America, Atlanta, Fox Theatre, 660 Peachtree St. N.E., Midtown. 404-817-8700; ticketmaster.com
THE VERDICT: Elvis-inspired jukebox nonsense.
Permalink | |
‘Nine Parts of Desire’ @ Horizon
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Heather Raffo’s “Nine Parts of Desire” scorches the soul like bombs falling on Baghdad.
Interwoven stories of Iraqi women whose lives have been shattered by war, the play is that rare breed of theatrical animal that makes difficult political statements by sketching human portraits —- and keeping them real.
Consider Layal, the promiscuous artist-diva who sleeps with tyrants. Or the little girl annoyed by the power outage that stops her ‘N Sync video. Or the expatriate who lives in New York watching the war on CNN, then witnesses hell come crashing down on 9/11. How ironic that her family in Michigan never calls but that her Iraqi uncles phone from halfway around the world to say, “I love you.”
These are some of the more palatable images to emerge from Horizon Theatre’s devastating production of Raffo’s lavishly praised one-woman show, which director Lisa Adler has masterfully restructured as an ensemble piece for three top-tier Atlanta actresses playing nine different parts. From scene to scene, Carolyn Cook, Marianne Fraulo and Suehyla El-Attar glide in and out of their traditional black robes as if they were second skins.
Harder to swallow is the Iraqi doctor who keeps delivering two-headed babies and uncovering cancer everywhere. Or the woman who indicts America with a screed of truth:
You have our war now inside you … we tether you to something so old you cannot see it we have you chained to the desert to your blood you carry it in you —- it’s lifetimes.
Just when you thought Atlanta theater had collapsed once and for all into a state of doldrums and indifference, along comes this deeply unsettling meditation on love, loss, despair, shame, death and acquiescence. A tapestry of composite sketches based on interviews Raffo conducted in Iraq beginning in 1993, “Nine Parts of Desire” is a bitter dose of meds. It’s also the most achingly affecting show of the 2006-2007 season, the perfect bookend to the Alliance Theatre season opener, “Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue.”
If you can see only one play this year, this is it.
El-Attar, in particular, will tear you to bits, first as the lovelorn, overweight, 38-year-old Amal, a Bedouin who sees with her heart, not her eyes. Then as the little Iraqi girl who can tell when bombs will strike by the way they hiss and cries when she sees “papa Saddam” on TV —- “because he stole my father so I thought he was bigger than anyone but he didn’t even fight to death.” To hear another of her characters scream “I love you” more than 20 times in a row and sound different in every instance, is as remarkable as it is upsetting. That El-Attar can dig so deep is astonishing.
Cook is mesmerizing as the lusty painter who can’t resist her erotic impulse and can’t dream of leaving Iraq. “I fear it here, and I love it here.” Ultimately, that love will rip her in two.
Though Fraulo’s accents can seem a little canned, she’s got a singular voice that rises and rumbles and erupts like a volcano. God only knows where it comes from, where it’s going. As Mulaya, the woman who throws old shoes into the river, Fraulo is a Joycean force of nature. “The river is the color of worn soles,” she says at one point. And later: “I have holes in my shoes. I have holes in my feet. There are holes everywhere, even in this story.”
Though Celeste Miller’s movement design can seem a little precious, scenic designer Tamara McElhannon’s Arab-inspired set looks as lovely as a miniature Fox Theatre, and Katy McCreary’s lighting is as soft as moonbeams.
In seeking out literature that enlightens us about the world beyond our borders (witness the recent “Homebody/Kabul,” “The Syringa Tree” and El-Attar’s “The Perfect Prayer”), Horizon has done a vast community service.
Part poem, part prayer, part promise, “Nine Parts of Desire” is a lamentation for a world that has run hopelessly amok. It is a brutal, breathtaking and wholly necessary observation about peace and freedom turned inside out.
THE VERDICT: The best show in town, and the hardest to watch.
THE 411: 8 p.m. Wednesdays-Fridays; 8:30 p.m. Saturdays; 5 p.m. Sundays. Through May 13. $20-$25. Horizon Theatre, 1083 Austin Ave., Little Five Points. 404-584-7450, horizontheatre.com.
Cuttin’ Up @ Alliance Theatre
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Cuttin’ Up. Alliance Theatre.
Through May 13. 404-733-5000. www.alliancetheatre.org
At Howard’s Barbershop, African-American males from lawyers to preachers to sullen ghetto hip-hoppers feel free to swap stories and gossip, tell jokes, brag about their sexual adventures and comment on the latest rave in the media.
Don Imus, Hurricane Katrina, Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin’s road projects and the war in Iraq are among the hot topics. The mythical Atlanta barbershop, though, is a timeless place, with a 1950s belief in old-fashioned values such as hard work, religion and patriotism. In the age of the Internet and cellphones, Howard’s is like a place remembered from childhood, where youngsters are initiated into the rituals of manhood and where men working and battling in the working world can escape and try to hold on to their youth.
The barbershop is the setting of “Cuttin’ Up,” a play that swings from hilarity to poignancy at the Alliance Theatre.Written by Charles Randolph-Wright based on oral histories collected by Craig Marberry in the book of the same name, “Cuttin’ Up” is a broad celebration of the importance of the barbershop in black culture. Kent Gash’s direction keeps a play loaded with black history and personal stories moving quickly, leaving the audience with a rich and varied theatrical experience.
Howard, the owner, is a World War II veteran who seeks to instill his bedrock values into two younger barbers, Andre and Rudy. Rudy loves his work as a barber, but he’s a modern, low-pants-wearing kid enticed by violent rap lyrics who likes to come to work late, to Howard’s constant annoyance. Andre, a searching, sensitive man in middle age, has drifted from city to city cutting hair. He’s haunted by a ruined marriage to a successful female singer.
Played by Helmar Augustus Cooper with humor, generosity and compassion, Howard is wise man of great character, community spirit and love of church and family. He’s the kind of man whose values gave quiet strength to the black community from the days of segregation to the triumphs of the civil rights era.
He’s kept his faith, sacrificing and keeping his shop going so his three sons can become a doctor, a lawyer and a professor.
As Andre, Keith Hamilton Cobb, who created the role of Noah Keefer for ABC’s “All My Children,” lights up the stage with high-wattage star power. Telling stories about his experiences to Rudy, interacting with Howard with combined exasperation and tenderness, he gives a memorable performance. Physically appealing, valuing Howard’s love of black history and self-improvement, sensitive to the needs of others, Cobb makes Andre a deep and complicated male with a tinge of tragedy and the possibility of fulfillment.
Eugene H. Russell IV’s Rudy is the perfect foil for Howard and Andre, learning from both older men while trying to hold on to what’s best and vital in hip-hop culture. He and Cobb achieve fine comic and dramatic timing, and their interactions with Cooper build warmth and understanding..
While Andre, Rudy and Howard’s stories form the backbone of the play, it’s also interspersed with vignettes from legendary African-American barbers from around the country, including a stirring portrayal of Ophrah Winfrey’s father Vernon, a Nashville barber, by Donald Griffin. Griffin’s performance is the highlight of a strong ensemble cast, including E. Roger Mitchell, Carl Cofield and Marva Hicks, who’s especially striking as the successful singer once married to Andre.
Howard’s Barbership celebrates the virtues of African-American men, but it’s worth visiting by anyone who loves the power of human storytelling, faith and endurance.
Here’s to Kitty, here’s to life
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
New York - When I heard that Kitty Carlisle Hart had died, the first thing I wanted to do was call her producer, Joe Spotts, who brought her to Atlanta last year for what turned out to be her final performances. Before those gigs, Hart had invited me to visit her at her grandiose New York apartment. I never made it, but the idea of having tea with the famous smile - for really Hart was just a fabulous set of red lips walking around on pair of pure-bred legs - had always intrigued me.
Heading up to New York this week to cover the Broadway scene, someone jokingly asked me if I would be taking tea with Kitty. Before I could get on the plane Wednesday morning, she had passed away Tuesday night, at 96. She once told me that she would never give up her Upper East Side flat, said to cover half a city block, for to do so would surely mean death. In the end, she passed away there quietly, with her son at her side.
Spotts told me that Hart had been suffering from pneumonia while in Atlanta, though no one knew it then. Frail when I first saw her on a soupy cold day last November, she apparently later became invigorated by her Midtown walks and was determined to go out with a blast. Spotts said he considered canceling each show, but she and her musical director, David Lewis, insisted on going on, and by the final number of the final night, Hart purred Shirley Horne’s “Here’s to Life” like it was as her last shining moment.
And it was.
Now this is the part I love. Spotts said Hart had become like a second grandmother and used to visit his Palm Springs home and swim laps every day in the pool. She told him that she had never been to the Taj Mahal and would like to go there, so Spotts was busy at work making it happen at the time of her death.
That’s a postcard I would have loved to have gotten. One great lady saying hello to another. A moment for eternity.
Once declared a “Living Landmark” by the city of New York, Kitty Carlisle Hart was like an ageless visitor from a lost time, when people still dressed up and said charming, witty things. She was an actress, a Metropolitan Opera singer, wife of playwright Moss Hart, an effervescent quiz show personality, a fashion plate and Manhattan socialite. She was always gracious and kind and she never stopped smiling. It would be impossible not to remember her with great fondness.
‘The Chase’ @ Theatrical Outfit
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW. Grade: B
Notice how the sheriff and his deputies keep their guns hanging on a peg by the office door — and the way the action seems to vibrate from a ringing phone on the desk.
As seen in Theatrical Outfit’s finely executed production of Horton Foote’s “The Chase,” those old-school touches are evidence of the way the beloved Texas-born playwright was influenced by both classic realism and 1950s television. Known as the Chekhov of the small town, the author of “The Trip to Bountiful” and “The Young Man From Atlanta” honed his craft early on as a writer of TV dramas, many of which were later produced onstage.
In fact, the vibe of Golden Age TV is so ingrained in 1952’s “The Chase” — which was made into a disastrous 1966 film starring Marlon Brando and Robert Redford — that it may remind you of vintage episodes of “Gunsmoke” or “The Andy Griffith Show.” But rest assured, the sleepy patina of small-town Americana will soon be interrupted by gunfire, scintillating melodrama and a seesawing, ever-shifting attempt to define exactly who is the hunter — and the hunted.
Though this ethical collision course doesn’t have the majestic sweep of some of Foote’s later works, it’s an archetypal study of the blurry lines between good and evil, the way the politics of power and pettiness are forever rippling at the surface of even the most elemental social structures.
In battling the demon presence of runaway killer Bubber Reeves (Daniel May), Sheriff Hawes (Mark Kincaid) must fight for the salvation of his own soul, so torn is he between civic duty and a personal yearning to repair to a cotton farm with his pregnant wife, Ruby (Cynthia Barrett).
The whole town — merchants, bankers, frantic mothers and all — seems to nip at the heels of Hawes, who must race against time and a growing mob mentality in his search for the flagrantly destructive Bubber. In a bone-chilling sequence, Bubber’s overwrought mother (Jill Jane Clements) even tries to bribe the sheriff and, once spurned, puts a curse on his unborn child.
Hawes, who brings to mind a Texas cousin of Atticus Finch, is a morally upright and responsible man, but he’s pretty inept at tracking down convicts.
Alternately sweet and tough, and ultimately reduced to tears, Kincaid makes a solid Hawes — physically monumental and emotionally conflicted. Still, the actor doesn’t seem to have the presence to occupy the stage for virtually the entire performance, which director Tom Key smartly presents as an intermissionless one act.
Barrett, for her part, gives her most impressive work to date, and some of the best moments come in the tiny details of character actors Bill Murphey, Scott Warren, Rob Lawhon and Victoria Leigh. Eric Mendenhall has such a naturally funny disposition that he gets laughs just for showing up.
Leigh (as Bubber’s estranged wife, Anna) and Lawhon (as Knub, the moonshiner she’s taken up with) provide a fascinating glimpse into the seedy underworld of the rural South, while Mrs. Reeves comes off as a Granny Clampett type bent on spleen and revenge. Clements is pure, white-trash wonderful, and Leigh is a marvel of scrunched-up anxiety and fear.
Juxtaposing the sheriff’s office and the backwoods hideout, R. Paul Thomason’s set is clean, elegant and functional. But unless you enjoy leaning sideways, you may find yourself wishing Key hadn’t positioned so many intimate conversations around a lonely chair at one side of the stage. Sydney Roberts’ costumes seem all of a piece with this Depression-era story, though the pregnant Ruby seems a bit of a clotheshorse for a small-town housewife.
Perhaps the best news to come out of this show is that Foote and Key are keen on collaborations. “The Young Man From Atlanta” has never been seen in this city; Key wants to do it. And “Bountiful” is an exquisite play that deserves to be re-examined again and again. Let’s hope that Foote doesn’t ride off into the sunset with “The Chase.” With more than 60 plays to his credit, the quiet master cuts a swath for all time.
THE 411: 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays. 2:30 p.m. Sundays. Also, 2:30 p.m. April 21 and May 12. Through May 13. $15-$30. Theatrical Outfit, Balzer Theater at Herren’s, 84 Luckie St., Atlanta. 678-528-1500, theatricaloutfit.org.
The verdict: A gripping study of moral decline in small-town America.
Permalink | |
Leon quits ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,’ apparently taking Forest Whitaker with him
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Atlanta director Kenny Leon has resigned from the highly anticipated African-American production of Tennessee Williams’ “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” citing artistic differences with the Broadway producer.
“It just wasn’t working out,” Leon said Thursday morning from New York, where he is in rehearsals for the Broadway run of August Wilson’s “Radio Golf.”
Leon said he was disappointed, because he had assembled an A-list cast, including Oscar winner Forest Whitaker for the role of Big Daddy; four-time Tony Award winnner Audra McDonald as Maggie the Cat and his longtime colleague Phylicia Rashad as Big Mama. Actor Anthony Mackie was to play Brick and is still said to be a candidate.
“I spent time talking with Forest Whitaker and Phylicia and Audra McDonald and Anthony Mackie, and I thought they would have been a great production,” Leon said. “But not everyone thinks the same.”
Meanwhile, producer Steven Byrd has hired Broadway actress and choreographer Debbie Allen to direct and still plans an October opening. Rashad, who is Allen’s sister, is expected to remain on board, while the part of Big Daddy has been offered to Danny Glover, a publicist for the show said Thursday.
“I care about the relationships I have cultivated with Forest and Phylicia and Audra and Anthony, and in terms of protecting those relationships, I thought it was best to walk away from the project,” Leon said.
Leon, who worked with Allen when he was head of Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre, said: “I know Debbie and I wish her well.”
Under consideration for the part of Maggie are actresses Thandie Newton and Anika Noni Rose. Besides Mackie, Blair Underwood and LL Cool J have been mentioned for the part of Brick.
Byrd — a former investor with Goldman Sachs who now runs a private equity fund — is a Broadway newcomer.
“Radio Golf,” the final installment of Wilson’s 10-play cycle about African-American life in the 20th century, is set to begin previews on April 20 and open May 8.
Leon said there was “no doubt in my mind” that he would be working with Whitaker and the cast he had lined up for “Cat” in the near future.
Permalink | |
‘Crooked’s’ grief cuts straight to core
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW: “Crooked” (Grade: B+)
8 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays; 2:30 p.m. Sundays. Through April 29. $15-$20. Theatre in the Square, Alley Stage, 11 Whitlock Ave., Marietta. 770-422-8369, theatreinthesquare.com.
The verdict: As devastating as it is funny.
The characters in playwright Catherine Trieschmann’s quirky dark comedy “Crooked” are so lonely, and heartbroken as to defy all cliches.
Jobless single mom Elise Waters does a good job of keeping up appearances, though the compulsive list-making and wine-sipping may signify that something’s amiss. Her teenage daughter, Laney, has a physical abnormality called dystonia, writes gruesome short stories and takes up with her school’s biggest outcast: sweetly overbearing Maribel, the friendless, overweight child of a Holiness minister.
Though it might be tempting to label this a Southern Gothic tale, Trieschmann, an Athens native, writes with such tenderness and authenticity that you can forgive her for piling on the eccentricity. It also doesn’t hurt that Theatre in the Square gives this off-kilter little play such a carefully calibrated performance.
MJ Conboy/Special
Directed by Susan Reid and showcasing the mesmerizing craft of Atlanta actress Jessica Phelps West as Elise, “Crooked” is one of the most moving and essential theatrical experiences of the season: a bone-funny, ultimately devastating meditation on the horrific blind alleyways of grief, neediness and deceit.
As Laney (Brittany Loffert) adjusts to her new school in Oxford, Miss., she encounters Maribel (Myranda DeFoor), who carries a Last Supper lunchbox and a unicorn tote bag and is as plain-looking as she is candid. Only the delightful DeFoor could make confessions about religious fanaticism and adolescent sex sound so matter-of-fact and funny. Her sense of timing is miraculously deadpan.
As the play unfolds, Loffert’s performance creeps up on you. Laney overcompensates for her insecurities by the brazenness of her lies, telling gullible Maribel that she was once kissed by a character in a Faulkner novel. Imagine Elise’s surprise when her daughter declares that she is a “Holiness lesbian.”
As portrayed by West, Elise is all-accepting and all-forgiving. But as her daughter’s personal life seems to spin out of control, she cracks wide open, and we understand the tragic dimensions of her fate. What Elise laments is her absent husband, who has vanished under a cloud of severe mental illness. No doubt about it: Some things really are worse than death.
Though you could argue that Trieschmann layers on an excess of physical and emotional turmoil, there isn’t a false note in this production. “Crooked” tests the waters of faith and love — only to find that despite all rumors to the contrary, nothing conquers all. Are you ready to be baptized by sadness?
A Spanish cockroach. On your radio dial.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Center for Puppetry Arts has always had an international flavor. Next season, it will even have a Spanish-speaking cockroach.
For the first time, the Midtown theater will offer kids’ shows in a combination of English and Spanish, with two productions by New York-based Teatro SEA. “La Cucarachita Martina” (“Martina, the Little Roach”) and “The Encounter of Juan Bobo & Pedro Animal” join a 2007-08 season that also boasts two world premieres by associate artist Jon Ludwig and the return of Bobby Box’s delicate and evocative “Anne Frank: Within and Without.”
The rationale for enhancing the center’s Spanish-language programming came with the discovery that there are 43 Hispanic Girl Scout troops in Georgia, executive director Vince Anthony says. “They came to us, and we wanted to really try to step up our Spanish initiative.”
Tickets and transportation for the Girl Scouts and other minority visitors will be funded through a grant from the Goizueta Foundation. The $500,000 gift from the Atlanta philanthropy is being awarded over three years and is being used to support other family shows as well.
“Diversity is not only in the programming,” Anthony says. “It’s in the pricing. That doesn’t mean they can’t afford it. It means we have to go out and find [audiences] in different places and make sure the prices reflect their whole socioeconomic situation.”
Anthony recently mentored administrators at Teatro SEA (Sociedad Educativa de las Artes) and felt the ensemble’s bilingual storytelling would be a perfect fit for the center.
Meanwhile, fans of Ludwig (“Avanti, Da Vinci!”) will be tickled that he’s creating two new shows next season: “Cinderella Della Circus,” which reimagines the woebegone fairy tale character as a frustrated aerial artist, and “Duke Ellington’s Cat,” which riffs on the premise that the jazz icon had a feisty feline side-cat.
In next season’s New Directions Series for adults, Box will revive his dollhouse-proportioned take on the story of Anne Frank; Ludwig and puppet builder Jason von Hinezmeyer will reprise their 19th-century Halloween cabaret, “The Ghastly Dreadfuls’ Compendium of Graveyard Tales and Other Curiosities,” and zany political satirist Paul Zaloom returns with “The Mother of All Enemies.”
For more information about the season, go online to www.puppet.org.
Radio show should please theater geeks
If you missed Eve Ensler at Oglethorpe University the other day, you can hear what the playwright has to say about political theater, the “Vagina Monologues” phenomenon and the irrelevance of critics on “Downstage Center,” an XM Satellite Radio program produced by American Theatre Wing and stored online at americantheatrewing.org. Produced by the institution behind Broadway’s Tony Awards, the interviews, heard on XM Channel 28 or available free on iTunes, are more than pithy sound bites. The hourlong shows — featuring everyone from “Spring Awakening” star Stephen Spinella to “Company” director John Doyle to “The Color Purple” librettist Marsha Norman — are deep, substantive and entertaining. Ruben Santiago-Hudson talks about his connection with the work of August Wilson. Actor Billy Crudup helps elucidate the Tom Stoppard trilogy “The Coast of Utopia.” Jerry Herman waxes enthusiastic about composing for Carol Channing (“Hello, Dolly!) and Harvey Fierstein (“La Cage aux Folles”). My favorite so far: actress Blair Brown on Sarah Ruhl’s “The Clean House,” which she read as a judge for a playwriting contest and never expected to star in. “A lot of the play,” Brown says, “is about how laughter and tears are side by side.”
Permalink | |
‘Always … Patsy Cline’ @ 14th Street Playhouse
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW. Grade: B
We all like to imagine that we could be friends with the artists we admire. I don’t mean painters, because pictures can be remote. Or movie stars, because they are often too grandiose to come down from the clouds.
I’m talking about singers. Earthy lounge acts. Cabaret divas. Those big-band canaries of yesteryear. Even the occasional “American Idol” contender. Because singing can be, should be, intimate and emotionally revealing. As tender and personal as a whisper. Or a kiss.
Patsy Cline oozed the kind of realness that makes those who are unhappy or unlucky in love feel less alone —- and Ted Swindley’s “Always … Patsy Cline” captures the way one Cline fan charmed her way into the heart of the big-voiced, Virginia-born songbird who died in a plane crash in 1963.
Backed by a terrific six-piece band, “Always” has parked itself at the 14th Street Playhouse to bodacious effect. Directed by the playwright himself and starring Cindy Summers as Patsy and Gwen Hughes as her ingratiating admirer, Louise, it’s a top-notch production that feels as warm and welcoming as the cozy ’50s dinette set where the two friends gather for a late-night plate of bacon and eggs.
Though Hughes has been a busy jazz singer around town for years, here she gets to unveil a comedic side that’s as vivid and unruly as her character’s orange-hennaed hair. To be honest, her big-as-Texas performance is so over-the-top and her twang so exaggerated that they take a little getting used to. At the other end of the spectrum, Summers is so well put together that she reminds you more of a daytime soap queen than a pint-size country gal.
Yet somehow, Summers’ exquisite control and Hughes’ warp-speed physicality make surprisingly compatible bedfellas. With her clenched smile, coy winks and dynamic renderings of the Cline repertoire, Summers seduces the audience without lifting a pinky, while Hughes bulldozes the crowd with her molasses-thick accent and Lucy-at-the-honky-tonk shtick. One small caveat: Though Cline died at 30, Summers seems to have overshot that number by at least a decade. Yet done up in an endless wardrobe of sequins and fringe (costumes are by Summers and Sandra Payne), she does more than just channel Patsy Cline. Wearing the confidence of her own remarkable talent as snugly as Patsy’s pink skirt, she’s pure radiance and charisma.
Like “Ain’t Misbehavin’, ” “Always … Patsy Cline” —- based on the true story of Cline and her friend Louise Seger —- is more than just a musical revue. It’s a bighearted, crowd-pleasing entertainment that suggests celebrities are often just regular people, hungry for the human touch.
THE 411: 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays; 4 p.m. Saturdays; 2 and 6 p.m. Sundays (no shows April 8). Through April 22. $39.50-$55. 14th Street Playhouse, 173 14th St., Midtown. 404-733-4750, woodruffcenter.org/14thstplayhouse.
THE VERDICT: You’d be crazy for not trying to catch it.
Play captures spirit of a legend
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“McGUIRE” at the Alliance Theatre
Grade: B
Showings: 1 and 5 p.m. on Sunday; Tickets: $25
Veteran sportscaster Dick Enberg shared a few memories of former Marquette basketball coach Al McGuire on Saturday afternoon at the Alliance Theatre.
“He saw life differently than the rest of us, with that New York street genius,” said Enberg, a close friend of McGuire’s, before a performance of his play, “McGuire.” “He was a one-of-a-kind character.”
Cotter Smith, in a 70-minute performance sponsored by Marquette University, captures the essence of McGuire’s Irish wit, streetwise philosophy and pure folk poetry that so captivated Enberg and college basketball fans. While Smith doesn’t quite match the fast New York cadence of McGuire’s speech, he fully explores the complicated man who received technical fouls for screaming at referees and wept in 1977 when his Marquette team won the NCAA championship at the old Omni in Atlanta.
At the start of the play, the final moments of Marquette’s upset victory against North Carolina are projected above the stage. The game is the catalyst for the character — McGuire’s reflections on his life’s progression from tough kid who grew up in his father’s Irish bar in Queens, N.Y., to the beguiling TV personality who brought basketball’s pleasures to millions.
Much of the drama of the play comes from McGuire’s growth. Smith convincingly portrays the conflicting facets of McGuire’s personality, from the pugnacious spirit that dominated his youth, to the humor, good cheer and “off the top of my head” wisdom that grew prevalent during his career as a basketball analyst. He also shows a knack for McGuire’s vintage jokes, based on basketball and life, drawing waves of laughter with each punch line and wry observation.
After winning the 1977 championship, McGuire left coaching and soon joined Enberg and Billy Packer in one of the most memorable sportscasting teams in TV history. McGuire and Packer frequently argued on the air, making for wonderful theater during their broadcasts, but the two actually liked each other off the air, as the play points out.
The performance punctuates McGuire’s philosophy of life through his last encounter with a serious illness. Smith paints a strong picture of a courageous man who faced death with the same cockeyed spirit he approached everything else. He died Jan. 26, 2001.
Smith’s performance fully shows the many facets of personality that made McGuire a true American original. His fans will leave the performance wanting to raise a beer — with a lot of foam, as McGuire liked to pour them — to the guy who loved basketball and life with equal passion.
