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‘Managing Maxine’ @ the Alliance
Theater review. "Managing Maxine." Grade: B- Through Nov. 2. Alliance Theatre, Woodruff Arts Center, 1280 Peachtree St. N.E., Midtown. 404-733-5000, alliancetheatre.org. Bottom line: Home-grown comedy is a bit uneven, but nicely sweet -- and tart.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Maxine Levine has a filthy mouth and likes to say the most ridiculous things. She likes to shock people and call her son-in-law fat. “You’re fat, Larry,” she screams. “No one wants to schtoop a fat man.”
On her first meeting with eligible bachelor Arthur, she takes a lusty bite out of a Krispy-Kreme donut and asks the widower if he had sex on a recent date. A bit jealous, you think? A tad too forward?
From Tennessee Williams’ Amanda Wingfield to Alfred Uhry’s Miss Daisy to Tracy Letts’ Violet Weston, the South’s dramatic literature is overgrown with steel magnolias. In “Managing Maxine,” the new romantic comedy at the Alliance Theatre, Atlanta playwright Janece Shaffer creates a different kind of Southern mama, a successful author and teacher who speaks candidly about foreplay and orgasms and has the chutzpah to go after the man she wants.
So what if she’s turning 71?
For her third Alliance Theatre world premiere (following 2006’s “Bluish” and 1999’s “He Looks Great in a Hat”), Shaffer finds herself confronting issues of senior courtship, floundering midstream marriages, grieving children and the awkwardness of feeling young but looking old. Maxine’s liberation and youthful joie de vivre is for her a source of personal pride, and the over-arching impulse of this sweetly affecting but overly ambitious play.
As the tone flickers from frothy to confrontational, Shaffer provides no less than three generations of sexual dysfunction: Maxine (played to the hilt by Jana Robbins); her daughter Emmie (Courtenay Collins) and son-in-law Larry (Larry Larson); and her granddaughter Marcy (who remains offstage). By the looks of things, sexual adventurousness seems to skip generations. While Maxine and her teenage granddaughter are making whoopy, Emmie’s marrage has stagnated. That’s probably enough material for a play.
But as it turns out, Arthur (the wonderful Ross Bickell) has a daughter Ivy (Courtney Patterson), who’s in the middle of a difficult separation and still grieving for her mom. When Ivy catches Maxine doing a little geisha role-playing in her dad’s living room, things get tense.
What’s interesting here is the way Arthur, a federal judge, becomes the nurturing father-figure (how modern!), and Maxine becomes the judge, attacking her own children, criticizing her friends (including Judy Leavell’s hysterical Joanne, who is quite content to be old) and generally acting like a jilted teenager. As was the case in “Bluish,” the men are the most sympathetic characters, the most recognizably human. (To me, at least.)
The most powerful scene is the one in which Maxine stops talking, takes off her clothes and looks at herself in the mirror. She’s devastated, and the audience is devastated for her. Ivy’s vexations with life, on the other hand, come across as shrill and uninteresting, while, thanks to Collins, Emmie reads like a real and natural person.
As she did in “He Looks Great” (which is kind of the same story, except that the main character has aged by 35 years), Shaffer writes short episodic scenes, and leaves it to the director to piece together a coherent production. Here, that’s a difficult task. Director Susan V. Booth does a really admirable job of smoothing out the creases, but the play itself works against her.
Though Joseph Tilford has designed a tri-level set that functions as Maxine’s apartment, Emmie’s kitchen and Authur’s place, the action gets cluttered on the sidelines, and scenes compete with one another. And does it make any sense that an affluent federal judge entertains his girlfriend on a hide-a-bed sofa? Come on.
Comedy is a matter of taste of course, but Shaffer’s idea that Jews love to talk about food gets stale after a few bites. Salmon spread, chicken and rice, jello molds, Krispy- Kreme, lamb chops, birthday cake and bellinis. All right, already. Arthur brings Maxine “fancy fruit,” a sweet touch that recalls Fraulein Schneider and Herr Shultz in “Cabaret.” But Shaffer guilds the fig.
She also falls into the habit of using the timing of classic TV sit-coms and sprinkling her congealed-salad concoctions with a few too many nutty characters and high-carb one-liners. That said, lonely Joanne and Arthur’s sex-starved friend Louis (Howard Elfman) are pure fun, people we recognize from the grocery store and golf course.
Anyone who has ever had an aging parent behave like a teenager in love knows that such situations in themselves are rich in comedy and role reversals. Families worry about the legal, financial and social implications of senior hook-ups, but they also find relief from the constant care-giving. There’s a conversation to be had about such matters, but not in this play.
Alas, “Managing Maxine” is a tough call. Shaffer has a genuine talent for writing about the people she knows, but in this case, she has trouble keeping her story on track. As the Alliance’s sole, 40th anniversary season offering by an Atlanta playwright, “Managing Maxine” is a mixed bag. It’s funny that a smaller show downstairs on the Hertz Stage — by a group of comedians from Chicago, no less — probably has more to say about Atlanta culture than this home-picked peach.
All that said, I hope Maxine and Arthur live happily ever after.
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Comments
By Doc Waller
October 16, 2008 1:32 PM | Link to this
Dear Arts Advocates,
Please accept this note as an invitation to the feature presentation of THROW PITCHFORK, the critically acclaimed one-main show written by Alexander Thomas, starring DOC WALLER, at the popular 7 STAGES Theatre. This limited engagement runs for two-nights only- NOV 6TH & 7TH @ 7:30 and availability is sure to go quickly, so call the 7 STAGES box office to reserve your tickets: 404-523-7647
It promises to be a wonderful night of theatre.
ON THE SHOW
Playwright ALEXANDER THOMAS mined the history of his own family to create this thought-provoking play. Described as a dramedy and written for one energetic actor, “Throw Pitchfork” explores serious terrain with much comedy.
Through a series of well-crafted monologues, WALLER portrays the Thomas family, including an overworked, alcoholic African-American father who passes on a legacy of self-hate and anger to his four sons, James, Wesley, Cleve and the youngest, Alex. The brothers are seen through the eyes of Alex, who is haunted by raging memories stemming from a pitchfork attack at the hands of his drunken father.
REVIEWS
“It is remarkable how entertaining and satisfying Thomas’s memoir is… Stuffed with big themes and memorable characters.”
—David Cote, Time Out New York
“The show is, in the end, an elegy for a father…a portrait of a father’s poignant legacy and what struck me as a dead-on depiction of how a family diverges from a center.”
—Bruce Weber, The New York Times
“Thomas vividly tells the stories of these tormented men…skillfully shifting between characters and weaving their stories together with poignancy and humor.”
—Lovell Estell III, LA Weekly
ON THE ACTOR
WALLER, who currently can be seen in the 7 Stages production of The Little Prince, is a veteran of the stage having worked with many well-known companies around the east coast. He also works extensively as a dancer, storyteller and writer. He currently serves as the Executive Artistic Director of the ground-breaking Alabama non-profit, THE LAYMAN GROUP. Visit his website, www.docwaller.com for more information on this dedicated artist.
Thanks for your valuable time.
Creatively,
REP @
www.docwaller.com
By Doc Waller
October 16, 2008 1:33 PM | Link to this
Dear Arts Advocates,
Please accept this note as an invitation to the feature presentation of THROW PITCHFORK, the critically acclaimed one-main show written by Alexander Thomas, starring DOC WALLER, at the popular 7 STAGES Theatre. This limited engagement runs for two-nights only- NOV 6TH & 7TH @ 7:30 and availability is sure to go quickly, so call the 7 STAGES box office to reserve your tickets: 404-523-7647
It promises to be a wonderful night of theatre.
ON THE SHOW
Playwright ALEXANDER THOMAS mined the history of his own family to create this thought-provoking play. Described as a dramedy and written for one energetic actor, “Throw Pitchfork” explores serious terrain with much comedy.
Through a series of well-crafted monologues, WALLER portrays the Thomas family, including an overworked, alcoholic African-American father who passes on a legacy of self-hate and anger to his four sons, James, Wesley, Cleve and the youngest, Alex. The brothers are seen through the eyes of Alex, who is haunted by raging memories stemming from a pitchfork attack at the hands of his drunken father.
REVIEWS
“It is remarkable how entertaining and satisfying Thomas’s memoir is… Stuffed with big themes and memorable characters.”
—David Cote, Time Out New York
“The show is, in the end, an elegy for a father…a portrait of a father’s poignant legacy and what struck me as a dead-on depiction of how a family diverges from a center.”
—Bruce Weber, The New York Times
“Thomas vividly tells the stories of these tormented men…skillfully shifting between characters and weaving their stories together with poignancy and humor.”
—Lovell Estell III, LA Weekly
ON THE ACTOR
WALLER, who currently can be seen in the 7 Stages production of The Little Prince, is a veteran of the stage having worked with many well-known companies around the east coast. He also works extensively as a dancer, storyteller and writer. He currently serves as the Executive Artistic Director of the ground-breaking Alabama non-profit, THE LAYMAN GROUP. Visit his website, www.docwaller.com for more information on this dedicated artist.
Thanks for your valuable time.
Creatively,
REP @
www.docwaller.com