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Thursday, March 22, 2007
‘Glengarry Glen Ross’ @ Alliance
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW. Grade: C +
“Glengarry Glen Ross” — David Mamet’s play about a bunch of sleazy, low-level real estate agents who act out their own little Watergate — leaves me cold.
There’s no doubt that the 1984 Pulitzer Prize winner is a virtuosic piece of writing and a showcase for the kind of piston-popping, crash-and-burn style of acting that has established the play’s robust mythology. But too much testosterone and scabrous language can come off as empty, shrill and devoid of humor, which is exactly what happens in the overcrafted, overcalibrated new production at the Alliance Theatre.
Piled high with profanity and bigotry, Mamet’s jokey little send-up of American greed has never been for the squeamish. But the payoff is in the sheer absurdity of the oversize egos and emotion — five small-time hustlers hawking dubious Florida real estate in the name of winning a brand-new Cadillac car.
Director BJ Jones’ seven-man ensemble — including top-tier Atlanta actors Chris Kayser, Larry Larson and David de Vries — certainly can’t be faulted for lacking talent. But with rare exceptions, the energy is so intense that the patina of felt life gets blow-torched.
The first words out of the mouth of Kayser, who plays the desperate and despairing Levene, feel awkward and self-conscious, and though Kayser will eventually connect with his character’s inner Willy Loman, the performance is wildly uneven. As Williamson, the guy in charge of tossing “leads” to the hungry pack of wolves, Joe Knezevich is all clenched jaw and penetrating stare.
While Larson is watchable enough as the gullible Aaronow, de Vries’ Moss exudes an oleaginous authenticity that’s as smart as it is slick. In the much smaller role of Lingk, Brik Berkes does a nice job of capturing his character’s low self-esteem and shrinking persona: Lingk is so uncomfortable that he almost disappears inside his own shirt collar.
But the man to watch here is Neal A. Ghant as Roma, the con artist who seduces Lingk and turns into the human equivalent of a paper shredder. Unlike other members of this company of overachievers, Ghant doesn’t let the Mamet sneer steal all the fun. This devil in a double-breasted suit is by turns beguiling and belligerent, but even as his character rages, Ghant is fully in control of the irony in his front pocket. In a room full of scaredy cats, Roma is the preening king.
“Glengarry Glen Ross” has made a lasting impact on the culture of venality, empowering writers of all stripes to think lean and mean. Just look at the black comedies of Neil LaBute, or the Ari Gold character on HBO’s “Entourage.” Perhaps writing dark is the best revenge. But even in the vilest of characters, we look for glimmers of truth and insight. In the Alliance production of “Glengarry,” such grace notes are few and far between.
‘All the King’s Men’ @ Theatre in the Square
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW. Grade: A -
Somewhere, Robert Penn Warren must be sipping whiskey with literary cronies and laughing in his old Southern way.
“Red,” as Warren’s friends called him, would no doubt fill glasses all around and raise a toast to Theatre in the Square’s rousing version of “All the King’s Men,” based on Warren’s stage version of his 1947 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.
Unlike a recent disappointing movie, the performance, directed by August Straub, achieves dramatic intensity from Warren’s dark stew of lurid sex, political melodrama, extravagant philosophizing and archetypal characters.
A professor at LSU in the 1930s during Huey Long’s era, Warren used the Louisiana “Kingfish’s” rise from populist hero to assassinated dictator as the basis for the Dixie-fried Greek tragedy of Willie Stark. Warren makes Willie an idealistic bumpkin who slowly — under the tutelage of the voluptuous political doyenne Sadie Burke (Kate Donadio) — turns into a Long-like boss.
Despite the greatness of Warren’s conception of Willie and the character’s storytelling assistant Jack Burden, the play is hampered by bookish, sometimes wooden dialogue, political theorizing, and a convoluted, melodramatic plot. The work, though, contains deep insight into political forces, the desire for power and to do good, and physical and spiritual love.
As Willie, David Milford possesses authenticity, intuitively grasping the Southern male’s rough, slap-on-the-back humor that can instantly change into the threat of humiliation or violence. During the long but constantly intriguing performance, Milford peels away the layers of Willie’s complex personality, a mixture of idealism and cynicism, ruthlessness and tenderness, philosophical seriousness and political bombast.
His relationship with Jack, portrayed by Hugh Adams, is the driving dynamic of the play. A former historian turned newspaperman turned political operative, Jack is a cynical observer reluctant to plunge into life, a Southern aristocrat who betrays his class to work for Willie, the vulgar champion of Southern farmers and workers.
Adams softens Jack, making him more of a wounded puppy than the edgy, world-weary nihilist of Warren’s book. Adams’ portrayal of Jack as a lost gentleman with the possibility of redemption makes him strongly sympathetic, even as he carries out Willie’s darkest orders. Adams deftly charts Burden’s growth from boyish dilettante into a fully mature man capable of love and compassion. We imagine him turning into a serious writer, Warren’s alter ego.
While at times abstract and verbose, “All the King’s Men” reaches a Shakespearean eloquence. It returns to the excitement of characters expressed through ideas. Theatre in the Square deserves praise for bringing an American classic to glorious life.
THE 411: 8 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays; 2:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. Sundays; through April 22. $22-$33. Theatre in the Square, 11 Whitlock Ave., Marietta. 770-422-8369, www.theatreinthesquare.com.
THE VERDICT: A classic novel makes for great theater.
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Atlanta takes Humana
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
When playwright Ken Weitzman was kicking around ideas for a new play, he started thinking about diseases with fancy names and elusive meanings. Things like chronic fatigue syndrome and Alzheimer’s.
Working on his master’s at the University of California in San Diego, he sent a group of actors out to do interviews and create monologues on the topic of health and healing. And then his wife told him about the Hebrew myth of the Lamed- vavniks, which contends that there are 36 people on Earth whose job it is to carry the pain and suffering of the rest of the world.
“If any one of them is lacking,” Weitzman says, “then the world is in trouble.”
All of this material, plus other ideas about science and spirituality, became the grist for his new play, “The As If Body Loop,” which is getting its world premiere at the prestigious Humana Festival of New American Plays in Louisville, Ky.
As fortune would have it, the Long Island, N.Y., native and his wife, Amy Cook, moved to Atlanta last August, both to teach at Emory University. And when Humana artistic director Marc Masterson decided to produce “Body Loop,” he sent it to Susan V. Booth, artistic director of Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre. Booth was so impressed that she replaced herself as director of David Mamet’s “Glengarry Glen Ross” (on the Alliance’s Hertz Stage through April 8) and got on a plane to Louisville.
“Ken’s play is on one level a comedy about a dysfunctional family,” Booth says. On a moral level, she says, it’s “about the cost of caring for another person vs. the cost of not caring.”
The title refers to a theory, developed by University of California neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, that a person who witnesses pain will have a response similar to that of the person feeling the pain. “It seemed to me in a way the scientific proof of empathy,” says the 37-year-old Weitzman, whose other plays include “Arrangements” and “Spin Moves.” Before becoming a full-time playwright, Weitzman made sports documentaries, including a history of NASCAR.
“Body Loop” — about a deathly sick social worker named Sarah and her family — has gotten good reviews at Humana, where it runs through April 7.
Writing in the Louisville Courier-Journal, critic Judith Egerton says: “This hopeful, frequently funny two-act play … moves with amusing snap under the kinetic direction of Susan V. Booth.” Egerton also called the play “one of the more polished works of the festival.”
The other full-length world premieres at this year’s Humana are Craig Wright’s “The Unseen,” Carlos Murillo’s “Dark Play or Stories for Boys,” Naomi Iizuka’s “Strike-Slip” and Sherry Kramer’s “When Something Wonderful Ends” — plus “Batch: An American Bachelor/ette Party Spectacle,” a collaborative effort by Alice Tuan, Whit MacLaughlin and New Paradise Laboratories.
More information about the Humana Festival can be found online at www.actorstheatre.org or by calling 1-800-428-5849.
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