The blog is going away but the reviews are not. You can find them here in the online print edition.
Home > ATLarts > Archives > 2008 > July > 16 > Entry
‘After Ashley’ @ Essential Theatre
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW. Grade: A
Ashley is no Mother of the Year.
The bored, unhappily married housewife (Dina Shadwell) smokes weed daily, uses foul language around her teenage son, Justin, and confides in him things no son should ever know about his mother. But that doesn’t soften his grief when she’s raped and murdered in the family’s basement 15 minutes into Gina Gionfriddo’s “After Ashley,” a provocative, tautly staged drama in Essential Theatre’s Power Play Festival.
Ashley’s fascination with the parade of sad sacks who populate advice shows on daytime TV (think “Dr. Phil”) foreshadows the way her own demise becomes a cause célèbre among “death-porn” shows that turn one person’s tragedy into another’s entertainment (think “America’s Most Wanted”).
It’s not coincidental that family patriarch Alden (Allen Hagler) resembles John Walsh, host of “America’s Most Wanted,” who parlayed grief over his son’s murder into a career in television. Alden, who writes a book about his wife’s murder, comports himself so well on a talk show promoting his whitewashed story that he’s offered a gig as host of a new sex crimes show that features “tasteful” re-enactments of attacks.
Lost in the fray is Justin (Brent Nicholas Rose), who is reeling from the loss of his mother and repulsed by his father’s revision of their family history and the success it brings him.
Enter charming Julie (Dowd Keith). The pseudo goth girl first seduces Justin because of his notoriety as “The 911 Kid.” (The recording of his frantic call to the police is sampled in a popular hip-hop song.) But she eventually sympathizes with Justin and helps him in some very surprising ways to blow the lid off the media frenzy that surrounds his mother’s death.
Produced in the tiny Back Stage Theatre at 7 Stages, the show has an intimacy that serves the drama’s tension well. Under Ellen McQueen’s direction, the performances are well-tempered, especially considering the highly charged emotions that run throughout, and the production is swiftly paced, despite a running time of two-plus hours.
Sonny Knox’s simple set is clever at first read: A lattice frame backdrop is hung with interchangeable paintings of images that represent the locale of each scene, but changing out the images ultimately proves noisy and distracting.
The emotional weight of the play lays primarily on Rose’s shoulders, and he does an admirable job portraying a confused, angry child who’s thrust too soon into an adult world. He bears the physicality of a thin, gangly teenager, but he convincingly conveys with equal parts rage and black humor a scathing indictment of the public’s prurient blood lust and the media’s eagerness to fulfill it.
THE 411: 8 p.m. July 16, 18, 21 and 26; $18-$22. Presented by Essential Theatre at 7 Stages Back Stage Theatre, 1105 Euclid Ave. N.E., Little Five Points. 1-877-840-0457, www.essentialtheatre.com.
BOTTOM LINE: A taut, timely drama about the public’s lust for reality TV tragedy and the media’s eagerness to supply it.
ALSO AT THE FEST: Paul Rudnick’s “Valhalla,” a comedy-fantasy about the king of Bavaria who goes mad trying to create beautiful fairy tale castles, and “West of Eden,” Letitia Sweitzer’s comedy about Adam and Eve in middle age.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment | Categories: Theater
Comments
By stateindustrywaterheaterSack
August 19, 2008 6:34 PM | Link to this
The site www.accessatlanta.com is interesting site, respect, webmaster. see this http://carolinecs.150m.com/state_industries_water_heater.html > state industries water heater
By buyliquorSack
August 20, 2008 8:00 AM | Link to this
The www.accessatlanta.com is amazing resource, good job, webmaster. look at this http://howdoqj6.netfirms.com/buy_liquor_online.html > buy liquor online