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August 2008
Billy Collins kicks off Decatur Book Festival
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Bill Starr, head of the Georgia Center for the Book, stood outside Agnes Scott College’s Presser Hall Friday night and looked out on a long line of people waiting to get inside, as if behind a velvert rope at a trendy nightclub.
“Isn’t it amazing,” he said, ” to have 1,000 people show up and waiting in line to hear a poet?”
It was, but the poet was former U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins, who gave the third annual Decatur Book Festival’s keynote address Friday and had the audience laughing along as if they were at The Punch Line instead of a poetry reading. After hearing that Robert Frost had read in Presser Hall, Collins noted, “Compared to Frost, my poems are like a dorm room after a long, bad weekend.”
Collins was droll and disarming, and perhaps more reminiscent of comedian Steve Wright than of Frost, tossing off self-deprecating humor. He read “The Revenant,” in which a dead dog’s spirit comes back to tell his master he hated him while alive and fantasized about biting him:
“I admit the sight of the leash
would excite me
but only because it meant I was about
to smell things you had never touched.”
In the easy flow of “Fishing on the Susquehanna in July,” he states he has never been fishing, period.
After a barely peceptible bow to strong applause, Collins took questions from the audience. Asked how he was selected to be poet laureate in 2001, he joked that in his mind, the Librarian of Congress asked five other, better poets first, but they all declined, and he just kept going down the list until he got to someone who accepted.
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Decatur Book Fest: The Big Read for “Gatsby”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Amidst all the hoopla of the AJC Decatur Book Festival, don’t overlook the Margaret Mitchell House’s tent on Ponce de Leon near Starbucks. They will be launching their “Big Read” program to get the community to read and discuss “The Great Gatsby.”
The Mitchell House’s Big Read is more ambitious than a lot of other cities’, says director Julie Bookman, thanks in part to a $20,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. As the project unfolds through next year, high schools will be brought into the mix (it’s required reading for high school juniors, and for once the curriculum pitches a book at the right age group).
“Gatsby” is one of those unassailable icons of literature. I’ve read it 5 or 6 times, and I love it. And yet I can’t help but wish maybe the Big Read had tackled something a little more challenging. I know, make it too challenging and people won’t want to read it.
Still, I’d like some input. What book do you think would be a good canididate for a project like this?
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‘Ugly Duckling’ at Center for Puppetry Arts
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW. Grade: C+
The little duck pops out of an egg and takes a look at the world. He peeps. He squeaks. He listens to his tomboyish, flute-playing, nature-worshipping new friend. And then he does what any newborn in his situation would do. He yawns.
My sentiments exactly, little guy.
Michael Haverty’s “The Ugly Duckling,” a world premiere at the Center for Puppetry Arts, is that rare bird of a show in which the lead character actually falls asleep before making a discernible dramatic splash. So delicately paced as to be soporific, this sweetly gentle adaptation of the Hans Christian Anderson tale strikes me as a perfectly ducky thing to do with toddlers.
Solo performer Amy Rush creates the character of a young nature lover with her own secret pond. Part narrator, part explorer and Huckleberry friend of frogs, ducks and fireflies, she toots her pennywhistle, plays with critters and manipulates all the objects (mostly table-top puppets). Working in the form known as “overt puppetry,” the actor is plainly visible and essential to the story. Rush may not be the most vivid personality we ever did spy, but she’s a nimble technician and likeable enough in a country-waif kinda way.
Her big challenge is to bring energy to Haverty’s lullaby approach. As the writer and director, Haverty has some nice details in his tool kit — especially when suggesting that the duck pond is a microcosm of living, chirping, wing-flapping inhabitants. Loved the cattails that double as tubular bells (ping, ping).
But the writing — the production overall — lacks wonder and magic. The wicked Owl that swoops down and insults the Ugly Duckling may be a naughty and vicious bird. But at least she brings a little drama.
Otherwise, for adults who’ve grown accustomed to the Center’s sophisticated and imaginatively designed puppetry, there’s not a lot here to make you say: “Well, I’ll swan.”
The 411: 10 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. Fridays. 11 a.m. Saturdays. 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. Sundays. Through Sept. 14. $16. Center for Puppetry Arts, 1404 Spring St., Midtown. 404-873-3391, puppet.org.
Bottom line: Quack, quack. This little ducky needs to wake up.
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Decatur Book Fest: Who do you want to see?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It now looks like the weather will be gorgeous for the Decatur Book Festival Saturday and Sunday, which is great news. Even if there isn’t any particular author you want to see, just hanging out at the festival on a pleasant day beats the heck out of cleaning the garage. Am I right, as my old friend Jordy Ray used to say.
But of course there are plenty of cool authors to go see. Eric Jerome Dickey, Pearl Cleage, John Dean (the Watergate one), Emily Giffin, Karen Abbott, Roy Blount Jr., Robert Sabuda (the popup book guy), Kathy Reichs, Mary Kay Andrews, Robert Olen Butler, Bill Curry (as in Ga. Tech), Louis Bayard, and so on. Whew!
So who are you planning to see at the Decatur Book Festival, and why?
And while you’re there, swing by the AJC tent on Ponce de Leon. I will be there from 3-5 p.m. Saturday to talk about books, blogging, and whatever, and we will have laptops so you can post comments from the site. Anyone who happens along can post their five favorite novels to one blog we’re running, or post their impressions of the festival to another blog.
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Update on Broadway’s ‘Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
While Kenny Leon polishes August Wilson’s “Gem of the Ocean” at the Alliance Theatre, Todd Kreidler, his True Colors associate artistic director, is cooking up Leon’s “Dinner.”
We’re talking, of course, about “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” Kreidler’s adaptation of the classic 1967 film that starred Sidney Poitier, Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. Kreidler has spent the last year toiling over his and Leon’s next Broadway project.
No “Dinner” date has been set for Broadway. “But we’re still aiming to go in the fall,” Kreidler says. “Right now, we’re planning to gather for a reading in New York after Labor Day, then hopefully begin rehearsals in October.”
Meanwhile, “Gem” starts previews Aug. 30 at the Alliance, and “Radio Golf,” the final installment of Wilson’s epic 10-play cycle, begins previews at the Woodruff Arts Center playhouse on Aug. 29. Alliance associate artistic director Kent Gash directs “Radio Golf.” The two-play repertory’s official opening is Sept. 6.
Kreidler, a close personal associate of Wilson, was dramaturg for both “Gem of the Ocean” and “Radio Golf,” which played regional theaters before eventually moving to Broadway under Leon’s direction. The Chicago-based artist will arrive in Atlanta in mid-September, presumably to check out the bookended dramas.
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Decatur Book Fest: So you think you know Harry
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
One of the Decatur Book Festival highlights for younger readers may be the “Harry Potter Trivia Quiz,” in which a limited number of kids, all under age 18, will be invited onstage to test their wizarding skills and win prizes, including deluxe editions of Potter books and gift certificates to Decatur’s Little Shop of Stories.
It happens at 4:30 p.m. Saturday at the Target Children’s Stage.
The fest has tapped Cheryl Klein to judge the quiz. Klein was Scholastic Books’ continuity editor on the Potter books, which made her one of the leading experts on all things Harry. I talked to her recently about her unique gig.
She explained:
“Continuity editor is a title we made up to describe what I was doing on the Harry Potter books, which was keeping track of all the facts. There’s copy editing facts, like Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans. Every time that it appears, does Every Flavor have a hyphen in it? Do we take out the “u” from “flavour” for the Americanized spelling? And I also help the primary editor keep track of where all the characters are, where all the magical implements are, ’cause the plotting is so intricate.”
Q: Did you ever catch a mistake that Rowling made, like a line where Snape has three kids named Moe, Larry and Curly?
A: Changes like that did come up. Talking about them is a little like violating lawyer-client privilege. It’s the author’s job to talk about those.
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Jasmine Guy’s ‘For Colored Girls…’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW. Grade: B+
When it comes to arts marketing, attaching a celebrity name to a project is never a bad idea. Broadway is famous for it. Now Atlanta’s IKAM Productions has taken the savvy step of engaging Jasmine Guy to direct “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow is Enuf.”
The good news is that the former star of TV’s “A Different World” delivers a fine reading of the Ntozake Shange classic.
For her directorial debut, the actress who grew up in Atlanta has assembled a top-notch cast and imaginatively annotated the script with a dazzling array of soulful vocals and fluid movement that speaks to her history as a dancer. There’s even a smiling African drummer (Omelika Kuumba) with an arsenal of gourds, bells and other noise-making percussive doo-dads that the actors use to punctuate their storytelling.
Lest you don’t know Shange’s “choreopoem,” it’s a sequence of mostly monologues told by a nameless company of six women who are distinguished by the colors of their costumes (Lady in Red, Lady in Purple, etc.).
Opening with a dazzling incantatory speech by Lady in Orange (the terrific Terry Burrell), the piece simmers with hothouse sensuality, lusty sexual initiation, bitter disappointments, ruined affairs and the accumulated emotional chaos of a group of women who are trying to redefine themselves in a world that has been forever dominated by the opposite sex. Though we get only passing physical suggestions of men in “For Colored Girls,” the passion and brutality of the male animal is fully described by their partners.
First produced on Broadway in 1975, having bubbled up from the political soup of Vietnam and the feminist movement, “For Colored Girls” parallels the work of Alice Walker and Toni Morrison. Although the material is oftentimes bleak and primal, it is also ripe with comedic potential, which these spirited women imbue with kicky energy and attitude.
Among the younger company members, Danielle Deadwyler (Lady in Yellow) and Yakini Horn (Lady in Blue) are particularly funny, while the husky-voiced Crystal Fox (Lady in Red) and the elegant Nevaina Rhodes (Lady in Green) bring depth and maturity to the drama. Burrell provides a good measure of sauciness and cheek, and Chinai Hardy (Lady in Purple) makes for a gorgeous and mesmerizing presence.
The nicest thing we can say about Guy’s gospel-inflected, Ailey-inspired choreography is that we wish there were more of it. From a cacaphony of words and language, she wrings a lovely movement vocabulary. The women run with strips of billowing colored fabric, pretend they are young girls performing astonishing jump-rope tricks and strut their stuff to the sound of ’70s funk.
A celebration of the joy and terror of the human condition, “For Colored Girls” is ultimately a rainbow-colored testimonial to the triumph of hope and healing. Jasmine Guy does it proud.
THE 411: 8 p.m. tonight-Saturday. 1 p.m. Saturday. 3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Sunday. $28-$35. IKAM Productions, 14th Street Playhouse, 173 14th St. N.E., Midtown. 404-914-7936, ikamproductions.com
Bottom line: Jasmine Guy proves herself an eloquent director.
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Endlessly Beautiful Music at the High
CONCERT REVIEW Members of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Sunday at the High Museum. www.atlantasymphony.org
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In politics as in art, the 1960s and ’70s felt all topsy-turvy; classical composers outside the new-music establishment, for example, often found art galleries more welcoming to their sounds than traditional concert halls.
It wasn’t about aesthetics as much as cliquish attitudes and cultural politics: Who was fit to command the future? Who should claim the once all-important sobriquet “modern”?
Today, classical music finds itself embattled in terms of broader cultural relevance but, for better or worse, free of partisan artistic skirmishes. Today, you’ll find that a top American orchestra like the Atlanta Symphony and its music director, Robert Spano, embrace styles from almost every quadrant of the contemporary music village.
This modern music history came to mind Sunday at an endlessly beautiful concert at the High Museum’s Robinson Atrium, an afternoon program titled “Music for a Summer Evening.” Spano and a couple of ASO percussionists journeyed across the Woodruff Arts Center plaza and found an ideal space for matching music with architecture and ambiance .
First up came pianist Pedja Muzijevic, who is billed as “Mikhail Baryshnikov’s music director” and has has a history working with Spano. He settled at a piano for John Cage’s “In A Landscape,” quiet music of dreamy impressionism.
Steve Reich’s “Nagoya Marimbas” fit wonderfully in this glass-roofed canyon, a musical parallel to Richard Meier’s celebrated architecture for the High — finding the sensuousness in clean white surfaces, repeated patterns and direct, palm-up communication. ASO percussionists Thomas Sherwood and Charles Settle were steel-solid in technique, indulging in the intoxicating beauty, at once primal and ultra-sophisticated, of Reich’s music.
Spano took a seat at a second Steinway and joined the other three musicians for George Crumb’s mystical, cartoonish, haunting “Music for a Summer Evening.” Plinks, plunks, children’s slide whistles, strums inside the piano and and goulish moaning are effects that, however unlikely, coalesce near the end into an emotional and very satisfying finish.
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Decatur Book Fest: Billy Collins is a sellout
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
And I mean sellout in the best possible way.
Collins, the former U.S. poet laureate, is the keynote speaker for the Decatur Book Festival Friday night at Agnes Scott College. Word from the festival organizers is that all of the free tickets have been given out, so there probably isn’t going to be much chance of just showing up and getting in.
I hear Collins is a wonderful speaker, in terms of reading his poems and entertaining the audience, so I’m looking forward to hearing him.
I will try to blog all week about the Decatur Book Fest, so keep coming back for updates.
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Memorial for Gene-Gabriel Moore announced
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A memorial service for Gene-Gabriel Moore has been scheduled for Monday at the Alliance Theatre’s Hertz Stage. The program begins at 6:30, but folks are invited to begin gathering at 6.
Moore, founder of the Suzi Bass Awards and one of the most admired men in Atlanta theater, died peacefully at his Lutheran Towers apartment on July 26. He was 72.
At the time, his friends and colleagues said a celebration would be announced later and held at 7 Stages, so it’s important to note that the event has been moved to the Alliance. (Moore had an office for years at the Little Five Points playhouse, where he held forth as artistic director of Not Merely Players, the professional ensemble he founded for disabled artists after suffering a series of strokes and other catastrophic health problems.)
“Even though it was Gene-Gabriel’s theater home, 7 Stages is in production, so the good folks at the Alliance have offered the Hertz Stage for our gathering,” says Deadra Moore, a local stage manager who worked with Mooore on the Suzi Bass Awards from the very beginning. The two were not related.
“We plan on a simple, informal event, and anyone who would like to say a few words or share a memory will be welcome,” the Suzi Bass Awards chair said in her email shout-out to the theater community. Alicia Quirk, who looked after Moore in his final years and considered herself his “adopted granddaughter,” is planning the event with Deadra Moore.
The two have requested photos and memories to be shared at the celebration. Anyone who would like to share but can’t attend can send emails to Suziawards@comcast.net.
Meanwhile, the Suzi Bass Awards is seeking contributions in Moore’s honor, and plans to use the funds to endow its playwriting award, already named for Moore. Anyone wanting to make a donation in his memory can contact the Suzis at SuziAwards@comcast.net.
On a personal note, I’ll miss Gene-Gabriel’s raucous laughter and delightful presence. He was at the theater all the time, and his empty chair will be impossible to fill. He was truly one of a kind.
Good night, old chap. And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
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A book trailer as good as a movie trailer
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The book trailer — a short promotional video to promote an upcoming book — has been around a bit, but the techniques are getting more sophisticated. I have never read anything by the historical thriller writer Brad Meltzer, but I saw his new trailer and it worked on me just like it is supposed to:
I can’t wait to read the book.
It’s called “The Book of Lies,” and it sounds like nonsense, but cool nonsense (it connects the Bible and Superman!) as folks like”Buffy” creator Joss Whedon, curmudgeon Christopher Hitchens and “Lost” producer Damon Lindelof explain it breathlessly.
This is the future of blurbing for certain kinds of books.
“The Book of Lies” comes out Sept. 2, and Meltzer will be at the Decatur Library on Sept. 19 to talk and sign. In the meantime, check out this cool trailer.
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‘Becoming a Man in 127 Easy Steps’ at 7 Stages
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW. Grade: A-
As a camp counselor in Costa Rica a few years ago, Scott Turner Schofield suffered a serious blow to the head that required a detailed medical examination and extended hospital stay. When his doctor realized the athletic young man had the body of a woman, he thought the kid was just confused.
“Son, you have a terrible brain injury,” the doctor said sternly.
After having a heart-to-heart conversation with another doctor about his quest for a sex change, Schofield was informed that Costa Rica is the cosmetic-surgery capital of Latin America. And the surgeon offered to remove his breasts on the spot.
In his autobiographical solo performance piece, “Becoming a Man in 127 Easy Steps,” the Atlanta-based artist describes the comic absurdity, social stigma, emotional imperilment and sheer-naked vulnerability of the transgendered life.
Suggesting an image of physical rebirth, the show begins with Schofield emerging from a cocoon of billowing fabric suspended from the ceiling. After a precarious aerial ballet, he bounds to the floor like some newly minted Peter Pan and describes the messy medical details of getting a sex change. In a metaphorical gesture that signifies the total soul-baring to come, he disrobes completely and tapes a sign to the set that says: “No secrets allowed.”
By turns fiercely comic, brutally honest and deeply moving, the 7 Stages show is beautifully written, choreographed and performed. Like some sexually ambiguous Scheherazade, Schofield unspools the action as a series of stories chosen willy-nilly by the audience from a list of numbers assigned to various words (“queer,” “straight,” “butch,” “femme” and so forth). Directed by Steve Bailey, the intermissionless 75-minute piece feels so artfully balanced and delicately nuanced that it makes you wonder if Schofield really has 127 stories in his repertoire or is just pretending.
From the little girl forced to wear a Minnie Mouse costume when she really wanted to be Mickey to the young man standing in front of a Texas judge begging to have his sexual designation legally changed, from the complicated family relationships to the three suicide attempts, “Becoming a Man” is raw, urgent and honest. Much to his credit, Schofield comes across more as a loveable neighborhood kid bursting with energy and insight than an agenda-waving political zealot.
With great humor and pathos, he describes his alienation from his biological father, relates his adventures as a baby-sitter and describes his close calls with Atlanta cops and skinny-dipping European males. During the performance, he sings “Like a Bird on a Wire” while tethered to a swinging rope, and has a live telephone conversation with his stepfather.
In a democracy that boasts great freedom of expression, transgenderism may be the final frontier of sexual politics. Going from female to male can’t be an easy process, and this 27-year-old artist never pretends that is. Schofield — winner of an off-Broadway Fruitie Award and a prestigious Princess Grace Foundation acting fellowship —says the titular number 127 is part of his Social Security number, and jokes that he wants someone to steal his identity.
As it turns out, the man born as Katie Lauren Kilborn has sculpted a personality so unique that it would be virtually impossible to replicate.
THE 411: 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday. 5 p.m. Sunday. Through Sunday. 7 Stages. 1105 Euclid Ave., Little Five Points. 404-523-7647, 7stages.org. (Note: Features adult material and full-frontal nudity.)
Bottom line: One of the year’s most essential theater experiences.
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Review from Bayreuth’s Wagner Opera Festival
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Bayreuth, Germany — Soprano Adrienne Dugger, an Atlanta native, was schedule to sing the role of Brunnhilde in Wagner’s “Ring” cycle at the Bayreuth Festival in Germany, but canceled, citing personal reasons, with only three weeks notice.
Attempts to reach her were unsuccessful.
This would have been an important milestone in a career that has carried Dugger to some of operas most important roles at major houses, including the Metropolitan Opera, where she sang regularly before moving to Europe. Her parents still live in Atlanta.
Dugger is a dramatic soprano, possessing one of opera’s rarest voices, and capable of singing the cruel and demanding roles in Richard Wagner’s operas. The Bayreuth opera house, built for Wagner by King Ludwig II, is the high temple of Wagnerian singing. Dugger has sung here for the last few years as Senta in “The Flying Dutchman,” to mixed reviews. But the role of Brunnhilde, dominating the 16-hour, four-opera “Ring” cycle, is paramount.
With her departure, the festival turned back to the singer it had abandoned, Linda Watson. A problematic singer, with a large but shrill sound and huge vibrato, Watson is still a practiced singer who can get through the entire “Ring” honorably. She was joined by a cast of mixed virtue, with perhaps the best singing coming from the Siegfried, heldentenor Stephen Gould, another American.
But the musical highlight was the conducting by Christian Thielemann. Rarely has a conductor so closely understood the peculiar demands and opportunities of this magic space, with its covered pit serving as a sort of mute for the giant Wagner orchestra.
Rather than struggling to make his orchestra heard, he went out of his way to support his singers, and to focus on simple passages that go unnoticed in a more brash interpretation.
At Bayreuth, when talk is about the “new” it’s not about a contemporary opera, it means a new, often radical re-staging of the Wagner canon. That’s all they do here. In his 10 or so mature masterpieces, Wagner (1813-1883) seemed to presage everything from Freudian psychoanalysis to fascism, Marxism and the liberal environmental movement.
Thus since the end of WWII, Bayreuth has emerged as a stronghold for complex, intensely psychological productions which demand much from the audience, in terms of familiarity not only with the operas but with literature and a vast range of references.
This “Ring,” directed by Tankred Dorst, a theater director who had never before directed an opera, suggests that the gods, and all myth, don’t die at the end of the final opera, but are always with us, often unnoticed but imbedded in our psyche, and forever a part of the landscape of our lives. We learn this metaphorically through the ruined sets, now part of a contemporary world, with children, lovers, and other real people wandering about as the cycle progresses.
But the opera world’s most talked about production is that of “Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg,” which had its debut here last year. Directed by Wagner’s 30 year-old great-granddaughter Katharina Wagner, it upends the opera, making Beckmesser, generally the laughingstock of this opera, into a radical artist who assaults the stuffy world of the erudite masters with his performance art. The latter includes the creation of an onstage “Adam and Eve” scene with frontal nudity.
Over the course of the opera, various icons of German culture are parodied as giant dancing puppets, complete with naughty exposures and a group of strippers. There are more ideas, some brilliant and many questionable, than can possibly fit into any single opera production, and things just become grotesque.
It was all a bit much for the Germans, who booed lustily, some even making it a point to exit noisily in the middle of the second act, when things were at their wildest.
Singing was generally mediocre, although the Beckmesser, Michael Volle, was outstanding. Sebastian Weigle conducted without subtlety, shape or form, although he managed some significant changes and questionable cuts to accommodate the conceits of the production.
Stefan Herheim’s production of “Parsifal,” making its debut this year, is simply brilliant. In it, the opera becomes a parable about the role of the past, and how to reconcile it with the present. Parsifal’s unconscious dream of his past is suggested, rather controversially, in Freudian settings where he returns again and again to the bed of his mother, always at the center of the stage. And each of the other major characters undergoes a psycho-sexual examination of sorts.
Meanwhile Germany’s history overlays everything, from the early 20th century through the Nazi years and into the time of Konrad Adenauer, the beginnings of modern Germany and modern Bayreuth, whose own history also overlays everything, just to keep the complexity going.
Given the history of Bayreuth, which embraced Hitler and served as his summer retreat, there is something especially disturbing about seeing Nazi banners unfurled on the stage here, even when they are about to be pulled down.
“Parsifal” was conducted by Daniele Gatti, who found a way to inject energy into the score but retain it’s feeling of spaciousness and clarity. Singing was mostly sub-par, with no one really distinguishing themselves.
Offstage, a dramatic and often bitter struggle has been going on as members of the Wagner clan battle for control of the festival. Wolfgang Wagner, the composer’s 89 year-old grandson, has run the festival with an iron fist for the last 57 years, and has announced that he will step down. He has insisted that he be replaced by his youngest daughter, Katharina, but the festival’s board, which meets in November, has balked at her lack of experience.
Until this year, the main other faction consisted of Wolfgang’s estranged elder daughter, Eva Wagner-Pasquier, 63, who has worked at major opera houses and is currently on staff at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, allied with his estranged niece, Nike Wagner, daughter of Wieland (Wolfgang’s brother), whose brilliant abstract productions led Bayreuth into a new era after World War II, and greatly influenced stage design around the world.
It’s a family a little more dysfunctional and than most; you can read about them in dozens of books, which seemed to appear on an annual basis.
Lately, apparently sensing the direction in which things were moving, Eva switched sides, suddenly was reunited with her father, and allied herself with Katherina.
Nike has been complaining loudly about this betrayal. But the Eva/Katharina bid seems to have the inside track, so we can probably expect to see more of Katharina’s work here. Things are definitely interesting in this little Bavarian town.
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New Marsalis Symphony Postponed, Again
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
He’s missed another deadline. The whole thing is now pushed back a year or more.
Jazz trumpeter and composer Wynton Marsalis has been commissioned to write a full scale, all-orchestral work by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, to be conducted by music director Robert Spano.
It’s been on the books for more than two years. The world premiere was originally scheduled for July 19, part of this summer’s National Black Arts Festival at Midtown’s Woodruff Arts Center, with repeat performances in November on the ASO’s main subscription series.
But in early June, Marsalis broke the news to the ASO: he wasn’t finished. The premiere was pushed back to November. The new work was be recorded by Telarc. It’s a co-commission by the ASO and Boston Symphony, with additional funding from the NBAF.
Not so fast.
This afternoon the ASO announced that the world premiere of Marsalis’ symphonic work has now been postponed until the 2009-10 season due to his delay in writing the work, and that a new date for the premiere will likely be part of the 2009-2010 season.
The new work is tentatively called “An American Symphony.” All along, Marsalis has been curiously silent about progress on what’s been billed as a 40-minute, six-movement symphony, where each movement evokes an indigenous American style of music, from ragtime to the blues to 4/4 swing. This will be his first score for purely orchestral forces, without Marsalis’ on-stage participation and with no jazz combo in the mix.
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‘Sherlock Holmes’ at Theatre in the Square
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW. Grade: B-
Last year, Theatre in the Square began its season with a contemporary adaptation of Aeschylus’ tragedy “The Persians,” one of the oldest plays in the Western world.
On Wednesday night, it opened its 27th season with Steven Dietz’s “Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure,” adapted from the original 1899 play by William Gillette and Arthur Conan Doyle. Compared to the 2,500-year-old Aeschylus, the Victorian-era “Sherlock” is a toddler.
Directed by Jessica Phelps West, this updated “Sherlock” finds the world’s most famous detective (played by Martin Thompson) donning a mustache, cape and numerous other guises in an effort to save the King of Bohemia (Brik Berkes) from an embarrassing sex scandal.
As the screw turns, the Baker Street sleuth becomes embroiled in a tangled web of mystery, fake identities, hairpin revelations and unrequited love. He shoots up cocaine, battles the wicked criminal Moriarity (Barry Stoltze) and manipulates the action in a chivalrous quest to protect the famous opera singer Irene Adler (Elizabeth Wells Berkes).
But somehow the show never manages to whip up much in the way of suspense, and Holmes’ antics don’t seem nearly so clever and intricately imagined now as they must have 100 years ago.
Elementary, indeed.
To its credit, the ensemble gives it a go nonetheless. Thompson evinces an elegant and deliciously timed performance as Holmes, spouting one liners with acerbic flair. Charles Horton cuts a sweetly likeable figure as that ultimate straight man, Doctor Watson, who narrates the story as a series of flashbacks. And Elizabeth Wells Berkes is one of the few actresses I know who can exude fire and ice in the same breath. Her Adler may be the most intriguing chameleon in this whole charade.
Some of the best comedic moments come from the over-the-top antics of Scott Warren, who turns Moriarty’s sidekick Sid Prince into a galumphing bully — often at the expense of the pert James Larrabee (Christopher Ekholm), Adler’s dubious husband. Also hilarious is Brik Berkes, who makes the Slavic royal seem as thick as his pork-chop sideburns.
At the end of the day, this highly mannered parlor-room mystery might benefit from a bit more such Mel Brooks-style tomfoolery. Dietz never manages to make Sherlock’s shenanigans very vital or adventurous. Easy to digest, this trifle is seldom much of a gas.
The 411: 8 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays. 2:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. Sundays. 2:30 p.m. Sept. 17. No 7 p.m. show Sept. 21. Through Sept. 21. $22-$33. Theatre in the Square, 11 Whitlock Ave., Marietta. 770-422-8369, theatreinthesquare.com
Bottom line: No tingles.
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‘Damn Yankees’ at Aurora
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW. Grade: C
There are no grand slams in Aurora Theatre’s season-opening production of “Damn Yankees,” which has its eye on the pennant but fails to score many points in the romantic-comedy ballpark.
The Faustian tale of an aging baseball aficionado who trades his wife for a Washington Senators jersey and gets a steamy romp with the leggy Lola as part of the bargain, the 1955 Broadway musical is a sweetly reassuring anthem on the power of love to withstand the siren song of fame, fortune, desire and lust.
But the story of Joe Boyd and his overlooked wife, Meg, has aged about as gracefully as a well-worn Little League baseball.
Though the songs of Richard Adler and Jerry Ross have their winning moments, George Abbott and Douglass Wallop’s book feels stitched together from the remnants of vaudeville. If its old-school schtick and creaky plot machinations are to satisfy the expectations of modern audiences, it requires nothing less than hard-hitting emotional investment from the company.
Alas, director Susan Reid’s production has the good-natured intentions and clumsy results of an ambitious community theater offering.
Wildly uneven and frequently wobbly, this “Damn Yankees” delivers a bland, creaky-voiced Joe Boyd (Bruce Taylor); a made-up-to-look-washed-out Meg (Jennifer Levison) and a perky comedienne miscast as the bombshell/she-devil Lola (Wendy Melkonian). Thank goodness for Justin Tanner (Joe Hardy), who sings handsomely and captures the yearning heart of an old romantic soul trapped in a young man’s body. And Spencer G. Stephens, as the exasperated Coach Van Buren, is good wiggly fun.
But you have to wonder what artistic director Anthony Rodriguez and musical director Ann-Carol Pence would think if they could actually see what’s happening onstage. (Rodriguez plays devil incarnate Fred Applegate to adequately smarmy effect, and Pence sits behind the chain-link fence of an onstage “dugout,” leading the band.)
There were some awkward, borderline embarrassing moments the night I caught the show. One actress took a tumble and landed on the floor; another nearly lost part of her costume. And because the band and the ensemble seemed intent on outblasting one another, the finale was a mess.
Also problematic: Taylor and Levison seemed to make no honest connections whatsoever. Melkonian’s requisite cutesy mannerisms were mostly obscured by her bad wig. And while Katie Arjona’s choreography brought out the energy and enthusiasm of this youthful ensemble, the overall design (sets by Bob Hoffman, costumes by Amanda Sutt) was fussier than necessary.
Aurora, which has produced a string of old-fashioned musicals including “Camelot” and “Annie Get Your Gun,” simply may not have the resources to match its enthusiasm.
“Damn Yankees,” at least, is a no-hitter.
THE 411: 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays. 2:30 p.m. Saturdays-Sundays. Through Sept. 7. $16-$30. Aurora Theatre, 128 Pike St., Lawrenceville. 678-226-6222, auroratheatre.com
Bottom line: Strikes out.
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The new Bulwer-Lytton winners are in!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Surely you’ve heard of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, a competition to create really, really bad writing that’s been going on for more than 25 years. It’s named for George Bulwer-Lytton, a Victorian novelist who penned the opening line “It was a dark and stormy night” before it was a cliche that everyone chuckled over.
The idea is to write a spectacularly bad opening sentence of a novel that’s so bad it’s wonderful in its badness. Here is the 2008 winner, from Garrison Spik of Washington, D.C.
“Theirs was a New York love, a checkered taxi ride burning rubber, and like the city their passion was open 24/7, steam rising from their bodies like slick streets exhaling warm, moist, white breath through manhole covers stamped Forged by DeLaney Bros., Piscataway, N.J.”
And I particularly liked this one, in the Detective category, from Robert B. Robeson of Lincoln, Neb.:
“Mike Hummer had been a private detective so long he could remember Preparation A, his hair reminded everyone of a rat who’d bitten into an electrical cord, but he could still run faster than greased owl snot when he was on a bad guy’s trail, and they said his friskings were a lot like getting a vasectomy at Sears.”
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Jack Pendarvis’s new novel is “Awesome”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jack Pendarvis is a very offbeat writer with a unique sense of humor and a devoted fan base who consider his first novel “Awesome” because that is, indeed, the title. It’s rather slim, and is narrated by a giant named Awesome who wears a derby, builds robots and invents religion. Yeah, another one of those.
I hear his readings are quite delightful, and there are thee chances to verify that for yourself coming up.
Thursday night at 7 he’s the main course at a Ballroom Book Bash sponsored by A Cappella Books and The Chattahoochee Review at Highland Inn, 644 N. Highland Ave. The band Hub Cap City will also play and there will be light refreshments, so there’s a charge of $20 to come out and play.
Then Friday night at 7 he’s at Wordsmiths Books in Decatur, also doing a reading and signing.
And if you can’t make either of those, he will be at the Decatur Book Festival on Sunday, Aug. 31.
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Tut and the Blockbusters: Love ‘em or Hate ‘em?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It all started in the late 1970s with the first national tour of artifacts from King Tutankhamen’s tomb. Since then, museums have staged huge, money-making exhibits of everything from motorcycles to Picasso.
This fall, Atlanta will get two biggies: the new “Tut” and an exhibit of the famous Chinese terracotta warriors. According to our latest story thousands of people have already signed up for tickets to these heavily-promoted blockbusters.
Are you eagerly awaiting the arrival of the terracotta army and the belongings of the boy king? Or would you prefer to avoid the crowds and keep the $32.50? (That’s the current price for Tut in Dallas.)
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Atlanta Lyric Theatre moving to Marietta Square
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Since Brandt Blocker took over the Atlanta Lyric Theatre in May 2007, the city’s performing arts community has been abuzz about the heightened quality of work at the 28-year-old ensemble.
Now the Louisiana native is guiding the troupe to a new home on Marietta’s picturesque town square. In December, the Atlanta Lyric Theatre will become the resident musical theater company of the Strand Theatre, a historic 1935 Art Deco movie theater that’s undergoing a $4.5 million renovation.
“It’s going to be like a mini-Fox Theatre,” the 35-year-old artistic director and general manager of the Lyric said. “It’s really going to be an event theater.”
The move was announced at a festive Friday morning ceremony, featuring a jazz band under the square’s Victorian gazebo. “I’m from New Orleans,” Blocker joked to the crowd. “We don’t do anything without a jazz band.”
He then unveiled an impressive six-show season that will include Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast,” “Smokey Joe’s Cafe,” the regional premiere of “The It Girl” and “The Pirates of Penzance,” a nod to the company’s origins as a Gilbert and Sullivan troupe called the Savoyards.
“This really is right in the sweet spot of where we need to be and want to be,” Lyric board chair Steve Hauser said. The Coca-Cola executive said the Lyric has been “caught between two venues,” Georgia Tech’s large and expensive-to-rent Ferst Center and the small Byers Studio Theatre at its administrative offices off Northside Drive.
“I was so impressed with the people from the Lyric and with their commitment to excellence in the arts,” Strand executive director Earl Reece said.
The Strand and the Lyric began conversations about the partnership on June 4. Now the Lyric is adding an orchestra pit and fly space for scenery.
After a six-year fund-raising and restoration effort, the Earl Smith Strand Theatre, named for the former Cobb County Commission chair, will have its grand opening in January. “Beauty and Beast” (Dec. 5-21) will be the new venue’s first professional theater production.
Quoting the inscription on the marble facade of the Strand — “A monument devoted to the best in music, photoplays and theatrical arts” — Reece said: “I think they must have known that we were going to make this announcement today.”
The complete Lyric season:
“Beauty and the Beast.” Dec. 5-21. “Smokey Joe’s Cafe.” Jan. 16-Feb. 1 “The It Girl.” March 6-22. “The Pirates of Penzance.” April 24-May 10. “Chicago.” June 12-28. “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.” March 14 and March 21.
Season tickets on sale Sept. 1. $150 for the five adult shows. Single tickets, $30-$35. 404-377-9948, atlantalyrictheatre.com. For more information about the Strand, check out its website: friendsofthestrand.org
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Is Encore Park too ‘noisy’ for classical?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Friday in Alpharetta, the Atlanta Symphony plays its final classical concert of its inaugural summer at Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre at Encore Park. It’s been a season of success for the suburban venue, mostly, with new audiences for the orchestra but also lingering doubts about the heavily amplified pavilion’s suitability for the classical genre. It’s a story in progress, and we want your voice in it.
ASO vice president of marketing Charlie Wade estimates that up to 75 percent of Encore Park’s audiences for the pavilion’s classical concerts come from Alpharetta and points north. Total classical tickets sold for seven events (excluding the May 10 gala opening night) will approach 25,000.
That’s about five times more that what the ASO used to draw for its all-classical summer shows in Symphony Hall.
“A lot of this has been about introducing the orchestra to people who haven’t heard it before,” said Wade, adding that it’s still too soon to gauge how many of these new fans will drive to Symphony Hall in Midtown for main-season concerts, where the ASO does its best work.
But the flip side of Encore Park’s success was recently summarized by a mildly irate patron in an e-mail to the AJC: “Is Encore Park Too ‘Noisy’ For Classical Music?”
ASO officials have described the amphitheater, which they built and own, as “a revenue-generating exercise,” and thus rock acts dominate the summer calendar, with ASO concerts and community events (like high school graduations) in the mix.
Myra Whitney of Blairsville wrote this in a recent e-mail:
“I’ve attended two classical concerts at Encore Park in Alpharetta. While the music was quite enjoyable, there was a background noise especially noticeable during the quieter passages. The noise sounds rather like that generated by exhaust fans from a restaurant. The venue itself is very nice but this very distracting noise really makes it difficult to immerse yourself in the music.”
So now we open the floor for discussion. What’s your take on the sound and general classical ambiance at Encore Park? If you’ve been to concerts at other orchestras’ summer pavilion homes, like the Boston Symphony’s Tanglewood music shed, Los Angeles’ Hollywood Bowl or Chicago Symphony’s Ravinia, how do these compare with Encore Park?
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A smashing good time
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I promised I would post some photos from the Duck & Herring literary reading and car smashing, which went down Friday night at Eyedrum art gallery.
Jamie Allen from Duck & Herring filed this pithy report:
Well, the car smashing was a success. We killed the car (which was provided by C&L Used Auto Parts), we had a reading by Athens writer Johnny Pence, we sang “We Are the World” while children sat on top of the car and waved pieces of it in the air.
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Cirque du Soleil coming to Atlantic Station
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Cirque du Soleil is coming to Atlanta early in the New Year with a new show called “Kooza.” The signature blue-and-yellow Grand Chapiteau (Big Top) will be erected at Atlantic Station from Jan. 2-Jan. 18.
Though there has been no official announcement of the engagement, tickets are on sale now on the Cirque website.
To purchase, simply enroll as a member of the “Cirque Club,” which also entitles you to exclusive Cirque announcements and memberships. (That’s how I found out about the show.) Prices range from $38.50 to $150, for the Tapis Rouge VIP experience.
“Kooza” is described as the story of The Innocent, “a melancholy loner in search of his place in the world.” It will emphasize the Montreal-based company’s love of clowning and acrobatic traditions.
Let’s hope “Kooza” will be as fabulous as “Corteo,” which played Atlantic Station during the 2006 holiday season.
If past experience is any indication, you can be sure that Cirque will extend its Atlanta run beyond Jan. 18. Stay tuned for more details later.
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See and Do: Summer Singers
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I’m not a fan of Atlanta’s summertime heat and humidity. If it were up to me, all the great shows and concerts in the metro area would take place indoors between mid-May and mid-September. Then I could enjoy the gorgeous fall weather without feeling like I was missing anything.
That’s why I think the Summer Singers of Atlanta is such a brilliant idea. Atlanta’s original summer chorus, the Summer Singers formed in 1990 to present choral masterworks in — you guessed it — the summer. The concept has been so successful that other cities have formed their own summer choirs, but Atlanta’s original is still one of the best.
You can hear them present Mozart’s Mass in C Minor, along with other classical works and folk songs, this Sunday, Aug. 10 at 4 p.m., and Monday, Aug. 11 at 8 p.m. in the sanctuary at Peachtree Christian Church, on Peachtree at Spring Streets in Midtown Atlanta. General admission is $10 to $15. Call 404-909-8357 for more information.
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“Save Our Bookstore”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Running an independent bookstore is never easy, but things seemed to be going well for Wordsmiths Books in Decatur. The bookstore has hosted well-attended appearances by such big names as Amy Sedaris, Ani Difranco and Final Fantasy.
Nevertheless, the bookstore’s marketing director, Russ Marshalek, says the store is just two weeks away from possible closure. He’s planning a benefit weekend and asking for your donations.
The reason: debt accumulated from paying rent at the store’s previous location on East Trinity St. (it was about 3 times higher than at its current store on N. McDonough St., Marshalek says) and a recent big-name author event “that required a massive up-front investment that didn’t pan out,” according to store owner Zachary Steele.
Wordsmiths isn’t saying which author, but Marshalek says it definitely wasn’t the weekend’s “Breaking Dawn” event for Stephenie Meyer’s latest novel.
To read more about the bookstore’s fundraising campaign, see Steele’s blog.
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What are the “Moscow Rules?”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
According to author Daniel Silva, the Moscow Rules are real. During the Cold War, the CIA created a set of operating rules for dealing with tough situations, and anyone stationed in Moscow knew they were by definition in a tough situation.
Assume every telephone is tapped and every room is bugged.
Don’t look back. You are never completely alone.
Heck, you didn’t have to be a CIA agent to think that way. I was in Moscow as a college student during the Brezhnev years, and I was given some pointed advice to assume that I was being followed and could be approached by someone to get me to break some laws. Fortunately I was more interested in drinking vodka and seeing sights than in smuggling in blue jeans.
Anyway, Daniel Silva. “Moscow Rules” is the title of his new book, but it’s not set in the Cold War. His hero Gabriel Allon — art restorer and Israeli intelligence officer — is back and up to his neck again.
And Silva is in Atlanta to talk about and sign “Moscow Rules.” He’ll be at the Marcus Jewish Community Center at 7:30 tonight (Aug. 4). Maybe someone should follow him.
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