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November 2008
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The blog is going away but the reviews are not. You can find them here in the online print edition.
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Atlanta Opera’s “La Cenerentola”
OPERA REVIEW Rossini’s “La Cenerentola.” Atlanta Opera. 7:30 Nov 18, 8 p.m. Nov 21 and 3 p.m. Nov. 23. Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center, 2800 Cobb Galleria Pkwy., Atlanta. 404-881-8885, www.atlantaopera.org
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
There’s a style of regional-opera management, more tactical than strategic, where you blow the budget on one famous diva to help sell a production and, by necessity, skimp elsewhere.
The Atlanta Opera’s production of Rossini’s “La Cenerentola,” which opened Saturday night, was billed as the homecoming of mezzo-soprano Jennifer Larmore, a Marietta girl who has been a star in New York, London and Paris but has never sung with her hometown opera.
Until its move to the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center last season and the arrival of mature leadership a few seasons before that, the company found it impossible to lure talent of Larmore’s stature.
Yet the Atlanta Opera is thinking strategically, and this Cinderella tale is much more than just the Larmore show.
With an agreeable cast and a simple but effective production, “La Cenerentola” must be counted among Atlanta Opera’s great triumphs. (Is this starting to sound familiar? Almost every show, in fact, seems to consolidate gains from recent seasons and, wonderfully, raise the audience’s standards and thus our expectations for the future.)
David Gately is one of the smarter stage directors the Atlanta Opera has hired. His musically alert direction elevated what’s fundamentally a traditional production — with sets rented from Kentucky Opera — in savvy ways.
To get around the crusty censors for the 1817 premiere in Rome, Rossini and librettist Jacopo Ferretti stripped the fairy tale of the supernatural. There’s no fairy godmother, no pumpkins into carriages, no rats as coachmen. And to avoid audience riot at the sight of a sexy, unshod foot, Cinderella — whose real name, befitting her goodness, is Angelina - leaves behind a bracelet, not a glass slipper.
Gately restored some of those familiar folk-magic elements. Alidoro, the prince’s tutor, appears as a beggar and works like a sorcerer-free agent to bring the love couple together. Richard Bernstein, a rich, lyric bass-baritone with a light touch, has sung in Atlanta several times before and is here among the most compelling on stage.
Throughout the show, Gately lets the music inform the movement. The daffy and dreadful step-sisters, getting dressed, push up their brassieres on a bouncy cadence, for example. Ani Maldjian and Magdalena Wor (a recent Georgia State University graduate) played and sang the sisters as a matched set, youthful and vocally pure.
As the Prince, Nicholas Phan sings with a high, bright, Italianate tenor, a glint of silver in his tone, straining a bit only to reach the very top notes. Peter Strummer sings Don Magnifico, the nasty, buffoonish step-father, with the bluster and smooth confidence of a fine character singer. Hugh Russell acts a funny Dandini, the valet who exchanges clothes with his prince, but the baritone trips up on poor diction and unfocused delivery.
Elsewhere, the men’s chorus spin their heads or step out in precise gestures, a delight. The chorus in “Cenerentola” — prepared to perfection by Walter Huff — is only for the men, actually, and in most productions of this opera the women who populate the party scenes are silent extras. Gately here used the composer’s personnel decision to eliminate the band of desperate debutantes all together, focusing exclusively on the sisters and Angelina as the only possible objects of the prince’s affection.
Larmore, of course, commands the title role. In a yearning voice she offers the prescient lullaby “Una volta c’era un re,” but then crisply, fiercely, illuminates her coloratura arias with charm and ease.
When Angelina gets a Sarah Palin moment — boxes of fancy designer clothes! for free! — Larmore’s disarming, girlish demeanor pulls you into her narrative. Although Saturday her voice lacked the radiance of timbre we’ve come to expect, her insights into Rossini’s comically sentimental style were superlative.
That was less the case with conductor Gregory Vajda, a young maestro who supports the singers with care. Yet under his baton, Rossini’s spirit — fleet, frothy, classically elegant — felt missing. The evening dragged a wee bit, which isn’t the way to enliven Rossini. It’s true that veteran conductor’s fees can break a production’s budget, so perhaps hiring the still-developing Vajda was one tactical decision of an otherwise brilliantly planned show.
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ASO, Dame Evelyn and a New Percussion Concerto
CONCERT REVIEW Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Thursday in Symphony Hall. Program repeats 8 p.m. Friday and 3 p.m. Sunday. 404-733-5000, www.atlantasymphony.org
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Dame Evelyn Glennie, the superstar of her field, is playing with Donald Runnicles and the Atlanta Symphony this weekend. She’s the living embodiment of the fact that rhythm has pushed aside its rivals, melody and harmony, to become the dominant component of music.
Classical composers still typically deploy percussionists — who stand at the back of an orchestra — mostly for accent and spice. But a rock-steady beat drives 99 percent of pop music, and a heavy, discernable pulse gave modernism its freshness at the start of the 20th century (think “Rite of Spring”) and powers some of the most gut-pleasing music today (think “Ainadamar”).
But percussion up front? As soloist? How eccentric.
Glennie, a preeminent figure, has redefined her station. She’s the Yo-Yo Ma, and then some, of instruments that go thump! and thwack! and ting!
She has premiered dozens of major works. A few have already entered the canon: James MacMillan’s “Veni, Veni, Emmanuel” (1992), a percussion concerto, is among the strongest works composed by anybody in recent decades.
John Corigliano’s “Conjurer,” premiered by Glennie in Pittsburgh in February and played here Thursday, isn’t up to that standard, although its best moments held the magical sound when percussion takes the lead with violins in the back.
“Conjurer” is in three section, each introduced by a brief solo passage and each with a subtitle. “Wood,” involving a xylophone, marimba and smaller wooden instruments, starts with clicks like a cricket chirping, then watery drips then expands into spooky and mystical images that’s a Corigliano signature style.
At the end of “Metal,” a gorgeous section for gongs, bells and glockenspiel, Glennie struck a marimba note then stroked it with a bow, producing a rich, eerie, yearning sound accompanied by a halo of pure tones from the orchestra strings.
“Skin,” for drums of all shapes and sizes, showed Glennie’s theatrical, whole-body approach, where she telegraphs each bang on the drum so you anticipate what it’s going to sound like.
I usually respond to Corigliano’s music, and he typically excels when given a challenge. He was on hand to introduce his latest creation from the stage.
Yet I kept waiting for the 37-minute “Conjurer” to seize my attention. Surely Glennie and the ASO, skilled in contemporary styles, revealed everything in the score. I felt like the music remained distant, a very polished exercise in writing a percussion concerto.
Not lost among the battery of wood, metal and skin was Runnicles, the ASO’s principal guest conductor, making his first appearance of the season — the first of just four.
Before our eyes and ears, over the past eight years, Runnicles has matured into a sensationally good maestro. In Dvorak’s high-calorie “New World” Symphony, which closed the evening, he pulled from the ASO a sort of relaxed intensity, paying attention to detail while making cosmic sense of this familiar work.
They opened with Gershwin’s “Cuban Overture” a zesty carnival of music from 1932. Compared with some of the authentically Latin music the ASO has played in recent years — works by Osvaldo Golijov, for example — Gershwin’s exoticism now sounds a bit four-square and cartoonish.
Still, it’s wonderfully fun, and the ASO played it gaily. And it packs a rhythmic punch that set the mood for the rest of the show.
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‘Doctor Atomic’ documentary tonight
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A look at ‘Atomic’ opera
On Nov. 11 the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra will offer a free screening of “Wonders Are Many: The Making of Doctor Atomic,” a documentary about the opera “Doctor Atomic.” The behind-the-scenes feature will be shown at 7 p.m. in the Richard H. Rich Theatre of the Woodruff Arts Center. ASO Music Director Robert Spano and Georgia Tech economic history professor August Giebelhaus are scheduled to participate in a pre-film discussion.
The ASO’s premiere of John Adams’ “Doctor Atomic” is Nov. 21 and 23 at Symphony Hall.
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2008 Suzi Bass Awards handed out
Updated with photo gallery. Clink "Suzi" below.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Alliance Theatre dominated the Suzi Bass Awards on Monday night — picking up 13 of the 20 artistic prizes.
Alliance artistic director Susan V. Booth’s haunting production of “Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris” — named the best production of 2007 by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution — led the pack with five of the silver-star medallions, followed by playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney’s “In the Red and Brown Water” with four and Sarah Ruhl’s “Eurydice” with two. (“Eurydice” was a co-production with Georgia Shakespeare.)
All three productions were produced on the Alliance’s downstairs Hertz Stage, making it the year’s most acclaimed and essential drama destination.
The Suzi Bass Awards, named after a beloved Atlanta actress who died of melanoma a few years ago, were presented at a classy and formal affair in the Fox Theatre’s Egyptian Ballroom. Over the past four years, the Suzis have become Atlanta’s answer to the Tony Awards.
The top acting awards for a play went to LaLa Cochran for “The Little Dog Laughed” at Theatre in the Square and Joe Knezevich for his lead performance in Georgia Shakespeare’s “Richard III.” Natasha Drena won for best lead actress in a musical for Aurora Theatre’s “Annie Get Your Gun,” while Craig A. Meyer won the best lead actor in a musical for “Jacques Brel.”
Atlanta playwright Pearl Cleage showed up to claim the Gene-Gabriel Moore Playwriting Award for “A Song for Coretta,” and her first comments were a celebration of “being alive in the new America” of President-elect Barack Obama.
“Her characters are so much like our new president,” said 7 Stages artistic director Del Hamilton as he introduced Cleage. “Overwhelmingly positive and optimistic.”
“A Song for Coretta” is about a group of women waiting in the rain outside Ebenezer Baptist Church to view the body of Coretta Scott King. “This is the first play I have written in 10 years,” Cleage said, “and it’s a heck of a way to come back.” Cleage is also a highly regarded novelist.
The evening’s tribute to Suzi Awards founder Gene-Gabriel Moore and Spirit of Suzi Bass Award winner Carol Mitchell-Leon were bittersweet. Moore, who died in July after triumphing over a series of catastrophic health problems and forming a theater for the disabled, was remembered in a slide presentation, accompanied by Louis Armstrong’s rendition of “What A Wonderful World.”
It would have been hard for anyone to find words to describe the irrepressible and irascible Moore, but the pictures were profiles in courage. Moore, a former print journalist and TV inteviewer, was shown looking handsome and vital in pictures from his middle years. In images shot after a series of strokes and other ailments, he remained witty and spirited.
Leon, who has been suffering from an undisclosed illness for nearly a year, was saluted by former student Dorothy Bell and close friend Jen Harper. “She was the fiercest actor I have ever known,” Harper said of Mitchell-Leon, who taught at Clark Atlanta University and has been one of the city’s most visible actresses for years.
Harper said when she told Mitchell-Leon about the award, “She frowned up a little bit, and then the biggest smile came across her face, and she said, ‘Tell them thank you.’ “
“She is so deserving and the battle she has fought and won, I have never heard a complaint,” said Bell, who teared up as she recounted anecdotes about her mentor.
Here’s a full list of winners:
Featured actress, play. Bethany Anne Lind, “The Last Schwartz,” Jewish Theatre of the South.
Featured actor, play. Andrew Benator, “Eurydice,” Alliance Theatre/Georgia Shakespeare co-production.
Lead actress, play. LaLa Cochran, “The Little Dog Laughed,” Theatre in the Square.
Lead actor, play. Joe Knezevich, “Richard III,” Georgia Shakespeare.
Lead actress, musical. Natasha Drena, “Annie Get Your Gun,” Aurora Theatre.
Lead actor, musical. Craig A. Meyer, “Jacques Brel,” Alliance.
Director, play. Tina Landau, “In the Red and Brown Water,” Alliance.
Director, musical. Susan V. Booth, “Jacques Brel,” Alliance.
Production, play. “In the Red and Brown Water,” Alliance.
Production, musical. “Jacques Brel,” Alliance.
Scenic design. Kat Conley, “Eurydice,” Alliance/Georgia Shakespeare.
Lighting design. Scott Zielinski, “In the Red and Brown Water,” Alliance.
Sound design. Chris Bartelski, “In Darfur,” Horizon Theatre.
Costume design. Christine Turbitt, “The Merchant of Venice,” Georgia Shakespeare.
Featured actress, musical. Marva Hicks, “The Women of Brewster Place,” Alliance.
Featured actor, musical. Eric Moore, “Godspell,” Theatrical Outfit.
Ensemble, play. “In the Red and Brown Water,” Alliance.
Ensemble, musical. “Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris,” Alliance.
Choreography. Byron Easley and Kent Gash, “Sophisticated Ladies,” Alliance.
Musical direction. Michael Fauss, “Jacques Brel,” Alliance.
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‘High School Musical 2’ @ the Fox
“High School Musical 2 — On Stage!” Grade: C+. 8 p.m. tonight-Saturday. 2 p.m. Saturday. 1:30 and 7 p.m. Sunday. Through Sunday. $20-$68. Theater of the Stars, Fox Theatre, 660 Peachtree St. N.E., Midtown. 404-817-8700, ticketmaster.com
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Disney entertainment empire mastered the art of summer vacation decades ago. To visit a Disney theme park is to enter a fantasy world where your favorite cartoon characters spring to life in amazing Technicolor.
No wonder, then, that summer break is the conceit of “High School Musical 2.” In the second installment of the tween phenomenon, the entire East High gang relocates from Albuquerque, N.M., to the Lava Springs Country Club, which happens to be owned by the parents of thespian over-achievers Ryan and Sharpay Evans.
Lava Springs may not be a theme park. But as portrayed in Theater of the Stars’ world premiere of “High School Musical 2 — On Stage!” at the Fox Theatre, it becomes a sugared overload of cotton-candy colors, kitschy song-and-dance numbers, innumerable swimsuits and beachballs and one very meaningful kiss between East High dream couple Troy Bolton and Gabriella Montez.
The thinnest episode in the “High School Musical” franchise (Part Three is now a big-screen blockbuster), “High School Musical 2” loses its way by venturing off campus; in dancing from classroom to poolside, from restaurant kitchen to golf course, from baseball diamond to talent show, it goes off game.
The music is thin, and in this stage treatment the cast is uneven. But even though director Jeff Calhoun and choreographer Lisa Stevens can’t rival Busby Berkeley, they keep the 41-member cast on its toes and deliver a family entertainment that succeeds at tickling the fancy of kids while numbing the minds of adults. And every now and then, this “ever-effervescent” show evokes some genuinely affecting moments.
You feel that magic anytime you hear “You Are the Music in Me,” the duet that Kelsi (the lovely Olivia Oguma) has written for Troy (Anderson Davis) and Gabriella (Arielle Jacobs, reprising her role from the Theater of the Stars-incubated national tour). And you sense it in the finale’s “Every Day” and “All for One,” after Troy realizes his mistakes and trouble-maker Sharpay (Rebecca Faulkenberry) is redeemed.
Finding the onstage equivalent of Ashley Tisdale’s Sharpay has always been problematic, and Faulkenberry is no exception. Her singing is adequate but never memorable, and her one-note acting fails to exploit Sharpay’s delicious diva potential. And though Bobby List encapsulates the sweetness of Ryan, his take sometimes veers off to a fluttery and squeaky-voiced extreme.
Jacobs, on the other hand, has matured into a dazzling Gabriella — very pretty, and very easy on the ears. While Davis doesn’t quite have the dreamy charisma of film counterpart Zac Efron or the touring company’s John Jeffrey Martin, he puts his own stamp on Troy. In dealing with Sharpay’s ridiculous shenanigans, Davis nails the “what-the-heck-is-going-on-here?” look. He’s fun.
Beyond the principals, there’s not room for much character development. But attention must be paid to the following: the delightful Patrick Richwood as the officious, rubber-jowled Mr. Fulton, the country club manager and Sharpay’s pawn; Shannon Antalan as Taylor McKessie and Travis Waldschmidt, as the nervous and over-rehearsed ventriloquist, waiting in the wings for the talent show.
Though the actors look like they might slide off a couple of Kenneth Foy’s skewed set pieces, his design for the pool scenes is wondrous, as is Wade Laboissonniere’s endless parade of flashy costumes.
“High School Musical 2” may not be fabulous, and it definitely won’t get a prize for plumbing the truths of the human condition. But it knows its audience, and it knows how to whip up a summer’s worth of froth and fun.
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“Call Me Ted” — what else do you call him?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Ted Turner has finally written his memoirs.
“Call Me Ted” is in bookstores today, but I got to read an advance copy so I could review it for the paper.
As a book, it’s a little disappointing. Turner is not great at self-examination, and the early chapters about his boyhood and young adulthood, including even the suicide of his father, are just deadly, filled with cliches (he had a ghostwriter, Bill Burke) and passionless.
But once he starts into business, “Call Me Ted” starts to sound more like Ted.
Turner is a polarizing figure to many, particularly those who see CNN as a liberal network and do not care for Jane Fonda, Turner’s wife for 10 years in the ’90s. But you have to admire what he did, creating a 24-hour news network when everyone told him he was crazy, and basing it in Atlanta.
Remember those Olympics that were here 12 years ago? One of the reasons Atlanta got the bid was because the international committee was familiar with CNN.
I know no one has had the chance to read “Call Me Ted” yet, but that won’t stop you from posting an opinion on Turner and what he has done. So have at it!
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‘Goodnight Moon’ @ Alliance Theatre
THEATER REVIEW “Goodnight Moon” Grade: B- Saturdays and Sundays through Nov. 16 at 1 and 3:30 p.m. Alliance Theatre, 1280 Peachtree St. $15 and $20. www.alliancetheatre.com. 404-733-5000
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The two pre-schoolers in my house adore the picture book “Goodnight Moon.” Clement Hurd’s cozy, crayon-colored illustrations, with a hint of faux-primitivism in the style, and Margaret Wise Brown’s gentle, sing-songy words resonate with perceptive, if still forming, imaginations.
Parents find the 1940s tale of Bunny resisting sleep in his Great Green Room comforting, too, for its sweet earnestness — such a relief from the invasive Disney juggernaut, where every product seems focus-grouped to drive young consumers to maximum distraction.
So when our 4-year-old went to Chad Henry’s 2006 musical adaptation of “Goodnight Moon” — oh joy! — at the Alliance Theatre, the stage magic seemed to boggle the senses. The flying red balloon and talking appliances, the gags about getting one more a sip of water, the cow in the painting who actually tries to jump over the moon, and every other page of the story are brought to vivid, and often hyperactive, life.
Rosemary Newcott’s direction, in fact, has the opposite effect of the book. In striped pajamas, his cotton tail peeping out the back, Little Bunny (Derek Manson) and his pink-pajama’d pal Mouse (Sharon Litzky) apparently downed a couple of Red Bulls after dinner. They’re clearly on a sugar and caffeine high — and that did nothing to help Litzky sing in tune.
Children’s tastes aside, Chad Henry’s songs — snatches of honky-tonk and boogie-woogie and pop ballads — are mostly forgettable and offer few insights into the story.
The Old Lady who whispers hush (Amber Iman) gets a good turn with the title song. Yet “Hey Diddle Diddle,” trotted out three times, had visual gags in place but became a chore to hear.
Tellingly, the best number in the show is “Bears with Chairs,” with a driving rhythm and comic, razzle-dazzle choreography, and at the performance we attended it drew by far the most laughs and cheers from the kids in the audience, proving once again that children can be easily distracted but they know quality like everyone else.
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‘A Lesson Before Dying’ @ Theatrical Outfit
THEATER REVIEW. “A Lesson Before Dying” Grade: B. 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays. 2:30 p.m. Sundays. 2 p.m. Saturday and Nov. 22. Through Nov. 23. $30. Theatrical Outfit, Balzer Theater at Herren’s. 84 Luckie St. N.W., Atlanta. 678-528-1500, theatricaloutfit.org
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In Ernest J. Gaines’ 1993 novel, “A Lesson Before Dying,” a young black man named Jefferson is falsely accused of killing a white merchant. When his defense attorney calls him a “hog,” Jefferson is rendered sub-human, and condemned to a deeper kind of psychological purgatory.
Jefferson shuns a maternal visitor’s baskets of fried chicken and teacakes, getting down on the floor to gnash at the food and grunt like a pig. But over the course of the story, he achieves spiritual rehabilitation and rebirth, thanks to the ministering of a schoolteacher and preacher recruited by his surrogate family.
Jefferson’s journey — his capacity to love and forgive in the face of brutality — is now on display in a strong production of Romulus Linney’s adaptation at Theatrical Outfit. Delicately directed by Jill Jane Clements, the action moves painfully and methodically toward its inexorable conclusion.
Set in Jim Crow-era Louisiana, “Lesson” recalls such morally complex material as “To Kill a Mockingbird” and Horton Foote’s “The Chase,” both produced recently by the Outfit, the city’s major producer of Southern drama.
At first glance, the plodding play can feel a little creaky, preachy and loaded with stock characters (the bigoted sheriff, the sensitive warden, the idealistic teacher). But as long as the criminal justice system is exacting the death penalty (in the state of Georgia no less), as long as America flaunts disparities of color and class, Gaines’ archetypal tale remains as ripe for debate as headlines and talk TV.
Here designers Jamie Bullins (sets) and Rob Dillard (lighting) create a mood of spot-on realism for the parish courthouse, where Jefferson lurches in from a nearby cell to receive visitors: His godmother Miss Emma Glenn (Veronica Redd), never without a picnic basket in hand; the Rev. Moses Ambrose (Gordon Danniels) and plantation schoolteacher Grant Wiggins (Johnell J. Easter), who comes with his own set of troubles and conflicts.
Like some directorial angel, Clements takes great care in coaxing sensitively crafted performances from her company. Miss Emma’s nerves are a source of good comedy. William S. Murphey, solid as always, struts like a rooster as Sheriff Sam Guidry. Rich Remedios, as the quiet deputy Paul Bonin, is almost always onstage, and though he says very little, he provides an aura of calm.
If Easter’s Grant Wiggins seems a little flavorless, Little’s Jefferson is appropriately sullen — a little broad at first but ultimately affecting.
As Jefferson finds his peace in a twisted, bigoted world, time hangs. As he becomes a Christlike figure who is kind to children, his destiny transforms him. On opening night, so many tears flowed that the show felt like a lesson before crying. A somber, reflective and brutal story, yes, but one pinned to a crucible of grace and hope.
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‘Swimming Upstream’ at True Colors Theatre
Theater review. Grade: A-. Through Nov. 16. True Colors Theatre at 14th Street Playhouse. 404-733-5000, truecolorstheatrecompany.com
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
On Tuesday, America saw political theater on a grand and epic scale. On Wednesday night, Atlanta witnessed the birth of a major new piece of theatrical storytelling.
“Swimming Upstream” — written by a group of New Orleans women insistent on having their say about Hurricane Katrina — is the poetic equivalent of a breached levee. What begins as a flood of raw human emotion becomes a source of healing, transcendence and new beginnings.
Created by New Orleans’ Ashe Cultural Arts Center under the guidance of “Vagina Monologues” author Eve Ensler, “Swimming Upstream” pours a dark, heavy-freighted topic through a sieve of music, poetry and personal reminiscence — and reduces it down to the essence of sorrow, laughter and truth. If you come to theater expecting a lot of name-calling and finger-pointing, you will leave feeling happily purged of anger and vitriol.
Presented by Atlanta’s True Colors Theatre and directed by Kenny Leon, “Swimming Upstream” pairs A-list actresses Phylicia Rashad, Jasmine Guy and Shirley Knight with a powerhouse sampling of New Orleans talent, including vocalist Troi Bechet and spoken-word dynamo Asali Njeri DeVan.
Accompanied by musical director JMichael, the ten women sit in chairs, use hand-held mikes and read from scripts in a style similar to another fact-based theater project, “The Exonerated.” The performers sport individualized outfits of black, festooned with bright pink scarves, while a trio of singers (Willa Bost, Leslie Blackshear-Smith and Michaela Harrison) wear white.
Based on a year’s worth of workshops at the Ashe center, the stories are rendered as a pastiche of composite characters and voices — with Rashad being a sort of community matriarch and neighborhood grandma; Knight a flakey, yoga-addicted older white woman and DeVan a bereaved young widow who is pushed over the edge by the bureaucracy.
Looking over her reading glasses and speaking in an authentic drawl, Rashad — who never gives anything less than an impeccable performance — is a figure of wisdom and honesty. Her character might not have chosen all of her neighbors, she says, but come to think about, she would have chosen most of them.
Guy, whose gifts may have been overshadowed by her TV career, is a dazzling presence — glamorous to look at, an earthy, raspy-voiced singer and delightful as a character who rediscovers prayer by dancing around her living room. “I can pray — just not in prayer position.”
DeVan delivers some of the most blistering poetry of the evening; her speech about the $4,000 permit is heart-rending. And Bechet, for her part, alternates between swinging jazz, smoldering soul and the blues.
Finally, I can’t say enough good things about Knight, whose credits include a Tony, three Emmies and two Academy Award nominations. She comes across like a combination of Jessica Tandy and Meryl Streep, consistently funny and full of truth.
Ensler, who has turned “Vagina Monologues” into a global phenomenon focused on fighting violence against women and girls, knows how to turn visceral emotion into the stuff of great theater. If you’re looking for a way to prolong the high of this week’s historic presidential election, “Swimming Upstream” is the ticket.
One final note: Rashad leaves the cast after Sunday’s performances to fulfull a previous professional commitment. Rashad’s part will played by Guy, and film actress Kerry Washington will step into Guy’s chair.
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Obama has an Arts Policy
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This really is history in the making. Instead of disdaining the arts as too elitist, or merely keeping the subject at arm’s length, the President-elect’s website actually has an arts position paper.
A few choice lines:
“The arts embody the American spirit of self-definition.”
“To remain competitive in the global economy, America needs to reinvigorate the kind of creativity and innovation that has made this country great. To do so, we must nourish our children’s creative skills. In addition to giving our children the science and math skills they need to compete in the new global context, we should also encourage the ability to think creatively that comes from a meaningful arts education.”
“Unfortunately, many school districts are cutting instructional time for art and music education. Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe that the arts should be a central part of effective teaching and learning….”
The policy calls for increased funding of the National Endowment for the Arts — one of the few tangible proposals — and says, “As president, Barack Obama will use the bully pulpit and the example he will set in the White House to promote the importance of arts and arts education in America.”
Click here to read the whole thing.
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Obama, McCain and the books they read
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
According to various reports, John McCain’s favorite books include “The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire” and “For Whom the Bell Tolls.” Barack Obama has mentioned “Song of Solomon” and “Moby-Dick.”
No one ever mentions “Naked Came the Stranger” on these lists, do they?
Anyway, the San Francisco Chronicle tracked down several authors who live out there on the left coast and asked what we might make of their reading preferences. Richard North Patterson, Maxine Hong Kingston and Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snicket, agreed to play, and the Chronicle ran their assessments here.
I was particularly intrigued by novelist Patterson, who offered this:
“McCain is a student of history and he’s interested in the military. He has a fundamentally heroic view of the world. That his favorite character is Robert Jordan (from “For Whom the Bell Tolls”), who faces death stoically in the service of a cause that is likely to lose, speaks a lot to his feelings not only about heroes, but about character - the willingness to stand fast in the face of difficulties and defeat. It speaks to his self-concept.
Obama’s is a different list. It’s the list of a reflective man, I think, of someone who sees complexity. “Song of Solomon” speaks to his diverse American experience. “Moby-Dick” is essentially about someone who is an obsessive who can’t see the folly of his obsession and its potential costs. To me, Obama is someone who takes in multiple points of view and is not afraid of complexity.”
I’m sure not even reading lists are immune to partisan sniping at the moment, but they do provide a different insight. Your thoughts?
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Stockhausen’s ‘Heaven’s Gate’ and More
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Ensemble Sirius, the piano-percussion duo of Michael Fowler and Stuart Gerber, specializes in the music of the late German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. They gave a sensationally good concert Saturday night at Emory’s Performing Arts Studio, a black-box space that was — three cheers for avant-garde music! — filled to capacity.
Click here to read a preview article about “Heaven’s Gate,” a sort of performance art piece where a big church door is played as a musical instrument.
And also click here to read about how a local violin maker built the door-instrument.
The Sirius boys studied with Stockhausen and thoroughly reflect the composer’s classically psychedelic aesthetic. The opened with five movements from “Tierkreis” (“Zodiac” from 1975) and paid as much attention to the theater of the performance as to the tinkly, eerie, atonal music. At every moment there was much to hear and watch, marked by episodes of unusually beautiful sound. At one point Gerber struck a tiny bell on a string and then whirred it over his head, where the dying Doppler effect was pure sonic pleasure.
“Kontakte,” (“Contacts,” premiered in 1960) is the duo’s calling card. The composer himself helped guide and refine their interpretation of this music; Saturday they played it with fierce confidence. Gerber was stage left at a station of multiple percussion instruments, bells, cymbals, glockenspiels, chimes and a dozen or two others. Fowler was stage right at the piano, surrounded by a dozen bells and chimes and also a laptop (the acoustic sounds are reprocessed with electronics). Steve Everett, a fine composer and Emory prof, handled the “sound projection” station, a role that Stockhausen often performed at his own concerts.
It seemed to operate on multiple planes of interpretation. After a few minutes I got the sense we were witnessing a dark Shakespearean comedy, with Gerber taking the lead and playing the role of a Falstaffian character — over-blown, charming, witty, charismatic, roguish, explosive, playing all-out all the time. Fowler was thus his Prince Hal, following his jolly companion’s lead, less boisterous, always keeping something in reserve. The small bits on the piano became Fowler’s inner monologue, more an observer of all the sonic complexity than its instigator. The duo’s playing is incredibly assured, almost cocky. They made it impossible to not be sucked into the wonderful and frightening world of Stockhausen.
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