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Friday, September 7, 2007
Wine, hors d’oeuvres and Suzi
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Nominations for Atlanta’s Suzi Bass Awards, the city’s only professional theater honors, will be announced Monday night at the New American Shakespeare Tavern.
The awards for the 2006-2007 Atlanta season will be handed out Nov. 5, and Suzi organizers are hinting that after two years at the 14th Street Playhouse, Atlanta’s Tonys will move to the Fox Theatre.
The venue will be announced Monday at the Tavern — as well as the winner of this year’s Spirit of Suzi Bass Award, given in honor of the beloved Atlanta actress who died of melanoma in 2002 at age 55. (Previous winners of the Spirit of Suzi Bass Award include True Colors Theatre founder Kenny Leon and Atlanta actress and Actors’ Equity liaison Karen Howell.)
Monday’s free festivities begin at 5:30. There’ll be a raffle for two airline tickets good for travel to any Delta destination in the world. (Tickets are $20 and may be purchased online at suziawards.org.) The Suzi-hounds promise wine and munchies — along with nominations for the Suzi Awards’ 20 categories.
The Tavern is at 499 Peachtree St. N.E., across from Crawford Long Hospital in Midtown. For more information: www.suziawards.org
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‘Iron Moon’ @ Aurora
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW. Grade: C. 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays Through Sept. 8. $16 senior citizens and groups of 10 or more, $13 students with valid ID. Discovery Point Studio Theatre at Aurora Theatre. 128 Pike St., Lawrenceville. 678-226-6222; www.auroratheatre.com.
Family ties bind the first production in Aurora Theatre’s new black box space, Discovery Point Studio Theatre. But in this a case, it might have benefited from some outside perspective.
“Iron Moon” was written by local playwright Gabriel Dean and directed by his wife, Jessie Dean. Together they run Relativity Theatre Concern, which co-produced the show, and the drama is based on the life story of the playwright’s grandmother.
The play is about a family, too —- one that implodes in some of the ugliest ways imaginable.
Sick, elderly Eller (Lynne Ashe) is a patient in a psychiatric hospital compelled to tell a good-natured nurse (Nikki Toombs) about the events that led to her family’s undoing. While her story unfolds, the action is played out by Eller’s adolescent self (the promising Rachel Farley), along with her younger siblings and her parents, Jim (Bradley Bergeron) and Leafy (Sherrie Peterson).
Without question, Dean has a shocking story of violence, betrayal and faith set in the Depression-era South to tell. And the older, addled Eller is a complex character who is alternately frustrating, endearing and heartbreaking. Ashe does a tremendous job conveying the nuances of those emotions —- all while seated in an armchair, no less.
But there is a kitchen-sink quality to both the script and the production that overloads it to the point of distraction.
It’s enough that the play has a blind man, a mute child, a wanton woman, the specter of death and frequent leaps back and forth in time. But it also has a confounding Indian spirit; visions of a brandy-sipping Jesus; voice-overs from an unseen evangelist; and long, poetic monologues that do more to mystify than illuminate. And that’s not all. Patrick Campbell’s simple, evocative set design is gilded with intrusive wall projections of Scripture and pictures of a full moon. On another wall is chalked a Bible verse minus a few words, which are later filled in, and from a TV set blares more evangelical pronouncements.
So much effort is made through biblical references, apparitions and technological gimmicks to make Eller’s story say something important with a capital I that the heartbreak and redemption inherent to the story are obscured.
For a story about faith, the lack of faith in “Iron Moon” to stand on its own without all the unnecessary flourishes and embellishments is most stark.
Bottom line: A compelling drama obscured by too many bells and whistles.
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