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February 2008
Alliance to produce gospel version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
As part of its 40th anniversary season, the Alliance Theatre will stage a new gospel version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Jesus Christ Superstar,” and the composer of “Cats” and “Phantom of the Opera” will collaborate on project.
Opening in January, “Jesus Christ Superstar GOSPEL” is the brainchild of Louis St. Louis, a New York composer and arranger (“Smokey Joe’s Cafe”) who grew up in a Pentecostal church in Detroit. According to Alliance artistic director Susan V. Booth, St. Louis pitched the idea to Lloyd Webber by sending the British composer a recording of several of the gospel interpretations.
“Andrew Lloyd Webber listened and wrote back and said, ‘Yes, I want to be a part of it,’ ” Booth says. “The music made the case so efficiently that he said, ‘Yes, let’s do this together.’”
“This is kind of unprecedented,” St. Louis said from New York. “I don’t know of anyone who’s ever been allowed to take another look at a living composer’s work.”
The so-called “megamusical” will open in January with a 40-member choir and 16 principals. A director has not been named; Lloyd Webber is expected to attend.
Booth says it’s too early to say if the newly conceived Lloyd Webber classic will play Broadway, but that it “will certainly have a life beyond Atlanta.”
“I think New York could really use something like his,” St. Louis said.
Earlier this week, the Alliance announced the world premiere of the John Mellencamp/Stephen King musical, “Ghost Brothers of Darkland County,” a Southern Gothic mystery to open in April 2009.
On Sunday, it formally announces its full season, which includes six world premieres. Here’s the complete 2008-2009 season:
Mainstage
“Gem of the Ocean” and “Radio Golf.” August Wilson’s last two plays will run in rotating repertory. Former Alliance director Kenny Leon directs “Gem,” and Alliance associate artistic director Kent Gash directs “Radio Golf.” September-October.
“Managing Maxine.” World premiere by Atlanta playwright Janece Shafer. Directed by Susan V. Booth. October-November.
“A Christmas Carol.” November-December.
“Jesus Christ Superstar GOSPEL.” A new gospel telling of the Andrew Lloyd Webber classic. January-February 2009.
“Ghost Brothers of Darkland County.” World premiere by John Mellencamp and Stephen King. April-May 2009.
Hertz Stage
“The Second City: Too Busy to Hate … Too Hard to Commute.” World premiere by Chicago’s famed comedy ensemble and Atlanta artists. September-October.
“Smart Cookie.” World premiere by Julia Brownell, winner of the Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition. Booth directs. February 2009.
“26 Miles.” World premiere by Quiara Alegría Hudes. Kent Gash directs. March-April 2009.
Family Series
“Goodnight Moon.” Chad Henry adapts the children’s classic. Rosemary Newcott directs.
“Class of 3000 Live.” Newcott adapts and directs world premiere adaptation of the Cartoon Network show “Class of 3000,” by André Benjamin of Outkast.
Subscription packages go on sale March 2. 404-733-4600, alliancetheatre.org
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‘The Missionary Position’ @ Horizon
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW. Grade: C
Check the headlines for news about your favorite politician, and you may find an uncanny resemblance to the goings-on in Keith Reddin’s “The Missionary Position.”
Smear tactics. Grotesque photographs posted on the Internet. Shady real-estate deals. Conflicts of interest. It’s all par for the course in the campaign of the conservative presidential candidate who never appears onstage in Horizon Theatre’s election-year satire.
Directed by Heidi Cline, “The Missionary Position” suggests that the erosion of America’s hallowed principal of separation of church and state policy is being facilitated by a bunch of self-serving buffoons with personal agendas about their own personal Jesuses, pocketbooks and political aspirations.
That would be right-wing Christian wiggle worm Roger (Brik Berkes), campaign bean counter Neil (Anthony Rodriguez) and fashion-challenged socialite/congresswoman-wannabe Julie (Tess Malis Kincaid). While mealy-mouthed Roger checks into hotel rooms across America — signified only by the revolving paintings over the bed — Neil and Julie raid the minibar and whip up chaos.
This is probably a good place to explain that, despite its unexplained title, “The Missionary Position,” is not about a sex scandal. Rather, these political incompetents trash their candidate’s White House hopes by dint of their hyprocrisy, egomania and shady morals.
Thank goodness Roger never hangs a “do not disturb” on his door. The various maids (all played by Bethany Irby) who drop in have richer emotional lives and more credible concerns than Reddin’s political types. But why is Roger trying so hard to connect with these women? Like so much of the play, that remains an enigma.
In fact, it’s hard to figure out what to make of any of Reddin’s poorly nuanced characters or tenuous ideas. This is a solid, hard-working cast, but the overblown performances and hit-and-miss comedy won’t do much to win your vote.
THE 411: 8 p.m. Wednesdays-Fridays. 8:30 p.m. Saturdays. 5 p.m. Sundays. Through March 16. $20-$25. Horizon Theatre, 1083 Austin Ave., Little Five Points. 404-584-7450, horizontheatre.com
BOTTOM LINE: Not a theatrical front-runner.
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‘Angela’s Mixtape’ @ Synchronicity
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW. Grade: B-
Eisa Davis was still in her mother’s womb when her aunt became one of the most famous political prisoners of the 20th century.
In 1970, after Angela Davis’ gun was used in the murder of a California judge, she became the third woman in history to make the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list. Though the Communist Party member and Black Panther sympathizer was later acquitted, the episode has both shadowed and enriched her family’s story ever since.
In her autobiographical play, “Angela’s Mixtape” — a Synchronicity Performance Group world premiere directed by Liesl Tommy — Eisa Davis tries to come to terms with the events and relationships that have shaped her own politics, art and complicated personal identity.
In her play, Eisa’s character (Ayesha Ngaujah) becomes a musical mix master with a dizzying sample kit of personal anecdotes, poetry and pop music snippets of every genre. The intermissionless, 105-minute “mixtape” she loops together succeeds in finding a rambling, improvisational style of storytelling that wobbles on a random groove of its own: quirky, self-indulgent, confusing, in need of a good edit, but consistently fascinating and technically polished.
In laying down her song of herself, Eisa appears, for better or worse, to be dumping a lifetime of journal entries. She interlaces her own memories with quotes from her aunt’s autobiography, hop-scotching from Birmingham (where the Davis family lived) to Berkeley and Oakland, Calif. (where they ended up).
Eisa was heavily influenced by her aunt (played by Minka Wiltz), a college professor who wore purple clothes, smoked a pipe and entertained the likes of Toni Morrison. But if you think Angela was something, wait until you meet Eisa’s mom, Fania (Naomi Lavette), an ardent vegetarian who smoked pot and engaged in radical politics and protests. “No TV, no sugar, no meat, no preservatives, no synthetic fabrics,” her mother declares.
Out of these strong, vivid personalities, however, spring Eisa’s concerns and insecurities about her own identity. She never knew her father. She’s accused by her mom of not having enough black friends. And she comes to realize that her aunt’s celebrity is a prison that keeps them apart. “These bars are in the way,” Eisa tells her aunt, providing what seems to be the play’s big epiphany.
(It’s worth pointing out that in real life, Davis will perform in the Broadway musical “Passing Strange,” opening Thursday, and her play “Bulrusher” was nominated for a 2007 Pulitzer Prize.)
Though “Angela’s Mixtape” loses its focus along the way and has a few extraneous scenes (Angela’s interview with the rapper Ice Cube, for instance), it is rich in humor and wonderful performances. Besides Wiltz and Ngaujah (both excellent), Greta Glenn and Jeanette Illidge offer delightful sketches of everyone from Eisa’s grandmother (Glenn) to her prissy high school friends (Illidge).
Like life, “Angela’s Mixtape” is purposefully inconclusive and offers no easy answers. Its revolutionary discovery is that the Davis women are just as fraught and flawed as the rest of us. The beat of their boombox is fierce, but fun.
The 411: 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays. 7 p.m. Sundays. Through March 16 $15-$20. Synchronicity Performance Group, 7 Stages, Back Stage Theatre, 1105 Euclid Ave., Little Five Points. 404-484-8636, synchrotheatre.com.
Bottom line: Angela Davis’ niece tries to find her own groove. Slightly flawed, but fun and fascinating.
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‘High School Musical 2’ to get stage premiere in Atlanta
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Theater of the Stars has got is head in the game of Disney’s “High School Musical” — again.
Last year, the Atlanta producer mounted the first professional stage version of the tween phenomenon. Disney liked the show so much they sent it out on a national tour.
Now Theater of the Stars is taking on Part Two of the story of squeaky clean Troy and Gabriella and thespian villains Ryan and Sharpay. In November, the Atlanta producer will unveil the world premiere of “High School Musical 2” at the Fox Theatre.
And there’s more: In August, the national tour of “High School Musical” will play its final engagements at the Fox Theatre, where it was born in January 2007.
“We are calling it the reunion, but basically it’s going to be the final stop of the tour,” Theater of the Stars managing director Nick Manos said.
Tickets for the entire season are on sale now. Single tickets generally go on sale about six weeks before each show.
Earlier this year, the theater announced that it would stage the first post-Broadway production of Disney’s “Tarzan” in early 2009 and bring the national tour of “The Color Purple” to Atlanta during this summer’s National Black Arts Festival.
“Disney Theatrical Productions is thrilled to continue their association with Theater of the Stars,” Steve Fickinger, Disney Theatricals’ vice president for licensing, said via email from Europe.
“After launching the global success of ‘High School Musical’ onstage in Atlanta, I’m certain that in Chris and Nick Manos’ hands, we can look forward to two more spectacular productions.” (Chris and Nick Manos are the father-and-son team behind Theater of the Stars.)
Both Nick Manos and Fickinger were in Glasgow, Scotland, this week for the inauguration of the United Kingdom tour of “High School Musical.”
As for mounting a U.S. tour of the upcoming “High School Musical 2,” Fickinger said, “[That] is not in our game plan at this time.”
Theater of the Stars’ full season:
“Mamma Mia!”: The Abba musical returns in a co-production with Broadway Across America, Atlanta. (June 10-15).
“Oklahoma!”: A new production with the original choreography of Agnes De Mille. (June 24-29).
“The Color Purple”: The national tour of the Broadway musical that premiered at Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre in 2004. July 15-Aug. 3.
“High School Musical”: — Aug. 15-24.
“Les Miserables”: This new production will draw its design inspiration from the art of author Victor Hugo. Sept. 19-28.
“High School Musical 2”: — World premiere. Nov. 7-16.
“Tarzan”: Jan. 15-25.
“Stomp”: Jan. 27-Feb. 1.
For more information: theaterofthestars.com, 404-252-8960.
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August Wilson Monologue winners
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Three Atlanta high school students are headed to the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., where they will reprise their prize-winning speeches from True Colors Theatre’s August Wilson Monologue Competition.
William Combs, a junior from East Point’s Tri-Cities High School, took first place in Monday night’s competition at the 14th Street Playhouse. Holding an oversize check for $500 and a brass plaque, Combs said he picked a comic monologue by the character Toledo from “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” at the “very last minute.”
“My main thing was just to tell the story,” he said. “I guess that’s what did it.”
All told, 66 sophomores, juniors and seniors from 20 Atlanta-area high schools “had the courage to stand on this stage and make flesh the soaring poetry of August Wilson,” True Colors associate artistic director Todd Kreidler said. Of the nearly 70 students who performed in last week’s preliminaries, 16 were chosen for Monday’s finals.
“Don’t be afraid, just play the music,” Kreidler, a close colleague of Wilson’s, told the competitors. He was quoting Wilson quoting jazz giant Charlie Parker.
True Colors artistic director Kenny Leon could not attend the event because he was in London, staging Alicia Key’s concert tour and preparing for “Flashdance,” a new movie-based musical that opens in July and tour the United Kingdom.
The panel of judges, including Theatrical Outfit’s Tom Key and WSB-TV’s Monica Pearson, picked Galen Williams, a classmate of Combs’ from TriCities, as first runner-up. Williams performed a monologue written for the character Becker, from Wilson’s “Jitney.“
Pebblebrook High’s Meghann Lehmann, one of two white students in the final round, got honorable mention for her take on Vera, from “Seven Guitars.” Another interesting choice came from Pebblebrook’s Kimberly Wright, who played the character Boy Willie from “The Piano Lesson.”
Next month, all 10 plays of Wilson’s “Century Cycle” will be performed in repertory at a Kennedy Center festival, with Leon as artistic director. On April 7, students from three D.C.-area schools will compete in a Washington version of the monologue competition, which True Colors hopes to make a national project starting next year.
The three Atlanta finalists will will not compete in the D.C. pilot program, but they will perform their winning monologues in “showcase” style.
For more information about the Kennedy Center event, go to kennedy-center.org.
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‘Poker Night at the White House’ @ Dad’s Garage
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW. Grade: B -
Warren G. Harding (1865-1923) once proclaimed that he was unfit for the presidency and, based on the facts, he may have been right.
The Ohio Republican made whoopee with his mistress in a closet adjacent to the Oval Office, gambled away the White House china, and left a legacy of bloopers and bloviations. In death, his image was so tainted by scandal that the dedication of his tomb was postponed for years.
“He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered,” H.L. Mencken once said of Harding, who died mysteriously at age 57 while still in office. Some have speculated that Harding was poisoned by his wife, Florence — she of the nickname “Duchess,” the helmet hair, the granny glasses. Or that his death was related to the impending tempest known as the Teapot Dome Scandal.
All this makes fine fodder for the subversive political humor of Chicago playwright Sean Benjamin, whose “Poker Night at the White House” is getting a perversely satisfying workout at Dad’s Garage. “Poker Night” reads like an 80-minute version of the miniature sketches that Benjamin and his co-authors put forth in “43 Plays for 43 Presidents,” produced by Dad’s in 2002.
Without ever referring to Bill Clinton, George W. Bush or Barack Obama, “Poker Night” suggests that history has a weird way of repeating itself. Though director Marc Cram insists in his notes that the tale of “W.G.” Harding has nothing to do with “G.W.” Bush, you can draw your own conclusions.
Just make room for Clinton, Obama and Richard Nixon, too.
In the zany shadow-puppet segment that opens the show, we learn that Harding’s good looks endeared him to women and that rumors of his black ancestry made him America’s first black president. Yuk-yuk.
The idea of a puppet presidency is enforced by the man-size likeness of the commander in chief manipulated by Kevin Huey, who doubles as the first lady’s astrologer, Madame X, often in the same scene. A jolting image that.
But if Madame X speaks in a strange amalgamation of ethnic accents, Huey’s take on Harding is hysterical. Designed by Chris Brown, the puppet is just a horse-faced old geezer with a blank stare. Yet Huey’s movement skills and Ben Tilley’s lighting imbue the ridiculous old stooge with an amazingly expressive demeanor. It’s probably not intentional, but the lumbering puppet often looks like Frank Langella playing Nixon on Broadway. I’m serious.
Gina Rickicki does a nice job alternating between Flo-Hard and presidential mistress Nan Britton. Randy Havens doubles as Mencken (who loved to lampoon W.G.) and a Secret Service agent named Jerry Menenck.
Adding to the level of absurdity are the quotation marks that hang from the ceiling. When they light up, we hear actual quotations from the historical record. A bumbling fool in the White House. Just imagine.
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‘Southern Comforts’ @ Theatrical Outfit
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW. Grade: C+
Kathleen Clark’s “Southern Comforts” is a valentine to autumnal romance. Anyone who has trouble dealing with the idea that Grandma or Grandpa has fallen in love — or, heaven forbid, lust — will find this Theatrical Outfit production a healthy endorsement of senior-citizen hookups.
Gus Klingman (Steve Coulter) is a retired New Jersey stonemason, a Republican and a man with a brooding nature. Amanda Cross (Jill Jane Clements) is a widow from the Tennessee mountains, a Democrat and a cackler. But after a sip or two of scotch — “I find it helps my arthritis,” Amanda says — they sense that they would be happier together than apart.
So before you know it, a big moving van pulls up, and Gus’ sparsely furnished home is filled with books, furniture and rugs. Inevitably, there are a few rough spots as the partners contemplate their future.
Directed by Robert J. Farley, Clark’s loosely autobiographical play about her grandmother is a lot more sentimental than insightful. The performances are likable enough — though Clements slathers on the feminine charm to broad extremes and Coulter seems a bit young to be playing a man in his 70s.
In the end, “Southern Comforts” rarely surprises or provokes, but it makes a perfect excuse for an evening of hand-holding.
THE 411: 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays. 2:30 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Through Feb. 23. $25. Theatrical Outfit, Balzer Theater at Herren’s, 84 Luckie St., Atlanta. 678-528-1500, theatricaloutfit.org.
BOTTOM LINE: Too sweet for its own good.
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‘Raisin’ run-up — and Audra requests
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
You’ll be reading more about ABC’s Feb. 25 broadcast of “A Raisin in the Sun,” directed by Atlanta’s Kenny Leon, in the coming days. But fans of Phylicia Rashad and Audra McDonald (who won Tony Awards for the Broadway production of “Raisin”) will want to know about the following:
Rashad plays Big Mama, opposite James Earl Jones’ Big Daddy, in Broadway’s historic African-American production of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” which begins previews tonight and opens March 6. Leon was supposed to direct “Cat” but dropped out because of creative differences.
McDonald, looking glamorous at Monday night’s screening of “Raisin” at Symphony Hall, would have made a great Maggie the Cat, don’t you think?
Anyway, McDonald is giving a concert at Georgia Tech’s Ferst Center for the Arts on March 30. (ferstcenter.gatech.edu, 404-894-9600)
What would you like to hear Audra sing? Any requests?
Theater community all about politics
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This past weekend, just a few days after Super Tuesday, I caught Dad’s Garage’s “Poker Night at the White House,” by Chicago Neo-Futurist Sean Benjamin. The raucous satire of presidential incompetent Warren G. Harding, which I’ll be reviewing in Friday’s paper, is an indicator of how the Atlanta theater community is engaging in election-year politics.
Another case in point is the Horizon Theatre production of Keith Reddin’s “The Missionary Position,” which opens Friday. Reddin is the author of “Frame 312,” which Alliance director Susan V. Booth produced early on in her tenure. “Frame 312” was about the effect of the JFK assassination on a former Life magazine secretary — and the American psyche. “Missionary Position” imagines a tug-of-war between a conservative presidential candidate’s top fund-raiser and a Christian activist.
Speaking of politics, I’m sorry I didn’t make it to the reading of Josh Tobiessen’s “Election Day” at the Alliance last week. I’ve heard that “Election Day,” a finalist for the Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition, is a keeper. Maybe some smart Atlanta theater will put the topical comedy in a fall slot.
As for the Kendeda competition, I can’t say enough good things about Tarell Alvin McCraney’s “In the Red and Brown Water” - and Tina Landau’s first-rate direction. The sexy, evocative play relocates the Yoruban love triangle of Oya, Shango and Ogun to the Louisiana bayou. “In the Red and Brown Water” may not be perfect in every way. But it’s a remarkable achievement for the 27-year-old playwright and, quite simply, the best show in Atlanta at the moment.
Tickets: Alliancetheatre.org, 404-733-5000.
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‘In the Red and Brown Water’ @ Alliance
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW. Grade: B+
Something dreamy and magical is brewing beneath the surface of Tarell Alvin McCraney’s “In the Red and Brown Water.”
You know this because his characters sometimes talk funny, as if an invisible spirit is telling them what to say, and because their names dance with the musicality of some exotic place.
Oya, Shango, Elegba and Ogun: These aren’t just regular kids from Louisiana.
Beautifully choregraphed and directed by Tina Landau, “In the Red and Brown Water” finds McCraney — winner of the Alliance Theatre’s Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition — exhilarating in the hothouse sensuality of Yoruban mythology and Federico Garcia Lorca.
You won’t find a more steamy and erotic tale than that of track star Oya (Kianné Muschett), whose heart is divided between the sweetly spiritual Ogun (Andre Holland) and the muscle-bound Shango (Rodrick Covington). It’s a no-brainer that this barren young woman ought to stick with the hard-working Ogun, but in love and literature, things never run as smoothly as they ought.
Oya’s fate is foretold by street urchin Elegba (Jon Michael Hill), who has a criminal addiction to sweets and tells Oya’s mother (Chinái J. Hardy) about a mysterious dream in which her daughter is submerged in water. Mama Moja thinks Elegba just has sex on the brain. He does — in ways that may surprise you — and chocolate, too.
In addition to his devastating love triangle, what McCraney does so well is create an entire community — from the white shopkeeper (Daniel May) to the town gossips (Sharisa Whatley and Carra Patterson) to Oya’s bawdy Aunt Elegua (Heather Alicia Simms).
Happily, there is not a weak link in the cast. Muschett is consistently good, and the scene in which the stuttering Ogun wiggles his fingers to describe the sound of Oya’s running is exquisite. “Like crickets,” he says, “but more beautiful.”
Landau’s particular strength is to find a physical vocabulary that precisely matches McCraney’s shimmering poetry and playful experimentalism. She never clutters the stage with unnecessary props and costumes, and builds on the muscular athleticism of the cast. From such simple touches as pouring water, makeshift drumming and a cappella spirituals, she supplies a lovely and organic soundscape.
A couple of minor quibbles. Despite its claim to a Louisiana setting, “In the Red and Brown Water” seems to reside more in some mythical place of the imagination than the American South. And in hewing so closely to his Yoruban source material, McCraney’s story seems to lose focus at the end. We aren’t quite prepared for the shocking conclusion.
An original talent with an ear that is finely attuned to the rhythms of the heart, McCraney delivers a play that is unlike anything else on an Atlanta stage. It’s pure liquid poetry.
THE 411: 8 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays. 2:30 p.m. Saturdays-Sundays. 7:30 p.m. Sundays. Through Feb. 24. $25-$35. Alliance Theatre, Hertz Stage, Woodruff Arts Center, 1280 Peachtree St. N.E., Midtown. 404-733-5000, alliancetheatre.org
BOTTOM LINE: A young writer dips from a deep well.
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‘Hard Love’ @ Jewish Theatre
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW. Grade: B+
Hannah is forbidden by Jewish law to look at the man she has invited into her ultra-Orthodox home in Jerusalem. But she is in love with him, and worn down by life, and she will soon be torn apart by the push and pull of devotion and desire.
Such is the premise of Israeli playwright Motti Lerner’s “Hard Love,” which is getting an intensely acted production at Jewish Theatre of the South. Starring Mira Hirsch as the desperate, forlorn Hannah and Chris Kayser as her cynical ex-husband, Zvi, the play is both a haunting tale of unrequited love — and an intimate portrait of the vast divide between Israel’s religious and secular worlds.
Slowly releasing information about the lovers’ past and present lives, Lerner uses the arcana of rabbinical law as a device for unhatching the newly rekindled affair between Zvi and Hannah. After 20 years, the two are brought together when their own teenage children become romantically involved and Hannah’s elderly husband is on his deathbed.
Somewhere along the way, Zvi has lost his faith, while Hannah has become wholly immersed in hers. He is a worldly, womanizing novelist who lives in Tel Aviv. She is the sheltered, shabbily dressed wife of the leader of yeshiva. “You have become as evil as the world we live in,” Hannah tells Zvi, as he systematically seduces her.
As the ghosts of dead children and suicidal mothers hover, the two embark on the sort of ill-fated, cosmically misguided rendezvous that might have been designed by Iris Murdoch or any of the great 19th-century novelists.
In a show that is virtually devoid of comedy, director Susan Reid wrings superb performances from her company of two. Kayser’s Zvi is a tightly wound ball of neuroses, Hirsch’s Hannah a vessel of sadness, despair and longing. (Notice how she buries her face in the coat Zvi leaves behind.)
Lerner is writing about a specific religious milieu, but his concerns are universal: the gnawing doubts, smoldering passions and hurtful games of deception and betrayal that ripple through the human condition. At the end of this journey, we wonder just who is manipulating whom.
THE 411: 8 p.m. Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. 3 p.m. Sundays. Through Feb. 24. $18-$30. Jewish Theatre of the South, Marcus Jewish Community Center, 5342 Tilly Mill Road, Dunwoody. 770-395-2654, jplay.org
BOTTOM LINE: Israeli playwright delivers a shattering meditation on love and faith.
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‘Resurrection’ @ True Colors
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW. B-
Daniel Beaty has an uncanny ability to crawl in and out of the skin of a variety of characters of his own invention. As a slam poet and playwright, this human chameleon’s overarching concern is the plight of African-Americans who struggle with the vestiges of slavery and injustice.
In Beaty’s latest creation, “Resurrection,” a True Colors Theatre production at 14th Street Playhouse, he introduces a brainy, 10-year-old herbalist named Eric. “My life’s work,” Eric says, mixing a concoction from his chemistry set, “is to find a cure for the aching heart of black America.”
In the five other African-American males who wander in and out of Beaty’s ambitious solo performance piece, we see what a large and noble task Eric has on his hands.
The New York playwright’s people, ranging in age from 10 to 60, include an overweight bishop struggling with his food addiction; his son, a successful music industry executive who’s afraid to come out of the closet; a prison inmate with a pregnant, HIV-infected girlfriend; a 20-year-old man from the projects with dreams of being a Morehouse man; and Eric’s father, who is trying to run a vegan food store in the ghetto.
Using the same tool kit he employed so effectively in his Obie Award-winning “Emergence-SEE!” — which had its world premiere at New York’s Public Theater in 2006 and traveled to Atlanta twice — Beaty sketches a fast-changing, often comic emotional collage that attempts to weave several narrative strands into a cohesive pattern.
At its best, “Resurrection” comes alive when the artist loses himself in strident poetic flights that demand redemption, respect and empowerment for the voiceless souls he represents. But in trying to manipulate so many storylines at once, “Resurrection” sometimes loses its way, and its characters feel more manufactured than authentic, as if Beaty is forcing an agenda about addiction and abuse.
All that said, it’s pretty cool of True Colors to provide this “first look” at a work-in-progress, which reads like a black man’s answer to Ntozake Shange’s “for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf,” the groundbreaking choreopoem that “Resurrection” director Oz Scott took to Broadway in 1976.
Come fall, Beaty will have re-molded “Resurrection” into a six-actor piece that will have its world premiere at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. Meanwhile, he remains a moving and eloquent performer, fully convinced of the power of theater to heal hearts and change lives.
THE 411: 8 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays. 2:30 p.m. Sundays. 11 a.m. today and Feb. 14. Through Feb. 17. $10-$25. True Colors Theatre, 14th Street Playhouse, 173 14th St., Midtown. 404-733-4738, truecolorstheatrecompany.com.
BOTTOM LINE: Uneven but powerful look at the struggles of black men in today’s world.
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