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Tuesday, September 21, 2004
‘Matt & Ben’ at the Rialto
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Theater review: “Matt & Ben.� Through Oct. 2.
It takes a minute to adjust to the twistedness of “Matt & Ben,� Mindy Kaling and Brenda Withers’ off-Broadway hit playing at the Rialto Center for the Performing Arts through Oct. 2. If you don’t get it, you may be hopelessly unamused.
In this irreverent and smartly ironic play, two nimble comedians find themselves in an imaginary flashback to the pre-“Good Will Hunting� days when fledgling scribes Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are trying to hack out a screenplay in a dingy Boston apartment.
The gimmick of this quirky script, which bears the imprint of a “Comedy Central� or “Saturday Night Live� skit, is that the performers look absolutely nothing like the once and future high-school chums who went on to win an Oscar for their writing achievement. The “tall, dark and handsome� Affleck is played by Quincy Tyler Bernstine, a short, athletically built African-American woman, and the blond and chiseled Damon is portrayed by Jennifer Morris, a lanky brunette with a ponytail.
It is probably inaccurate to call these women drag kings, but they know how to butch it up and get under the skin of the sophomoric slummers. Body language and timing is everything, and both actors are first-rate comics with boundless energy and a smarmy disregard for the fortuitous golden boys they send up.
Affleck has the I.Q. of a Dorito; Damon is overweeningly serious but smart enough to lie.
In the faux thriller, the two are trying to write a screen adaptation of “Catcher in the Rye� when an unsolicited copy of “Good Will Hunting� drops from the sky.
The conflict that drives the high-octane physicality is the constant bickering between the smug and sarcastic Affleck and the starched and anal-retentive Damon. There are coy references to Ben’s predilection for Latin chicks and his lack of acting chops.
Without explanation, they are visited by a cupcake-licking Gwyneth Paltrow (Bernstine) and a doddering J.D. Salinger (Morris), who makes a cameo in the highstrung style of Katharine Hepburn — go figure. Jeff Croiter’s lighting and Fitz Patton’s sound play up the bad “Twilight Zone� references.
The production fares surprisingly well for the sprawling Rialto Center for the Performing Arts (although it pays to get a seat down front), and the writing feels fresher than it did when I first saw it in New York earlier this year.
“Matt & Ben� is a wonderfully over-the-top pop-culture putdown. That two females can inject so much testosterone into this bonanza of bad taste is what makes it such a giddy gagfest.
The verdict: Wicked, and well-deserved, satire.
8 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays; 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays; 3 p.m. Sundays. Through Oct. 2. $10-$35. Rialto Center for the Performing Arts, 80 Forsyth St. N.W., Atlanta. 404-651-4727, www.nederlanderworld.com/mattandben.
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Powerful ‘Color Purple’ at Alliance
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
EDITOR’S NOTE: This review appeared Sept. 21, 2004, after the world premiere of ‘The Color Purple’ in Atlanta.
Whether at first or 14th glance, Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple” hardly seems the stuff of musical theater.
For a good part of the story, Celie, a poor Southern black woman who’s so lugubrious as to be almost invisible, spends her time fighting off violence and abuse and pining for her lost sister and children.
Yet at the core of Celie’s archetypal journey of initiation is a love triangle that’s as much about hot passion as horrendous pain. And it’s from these vivid emotions that the Alliance Theatre’s new musical based on Walker’s novel has been imaginatively and innovatively coined.
The Broadway-bound “Color Purple,” which had its world premiere Friday night at a celebrity-studded gala, is a visually mesmerizing, vocally soaring gospel-jazz-and-blues pastiche that honors the shape of Walker’s epistolary novel.
As far as works-in-progress go, this one is well on its way to success, thanks to an often lovely, fresh and heartfelt score by Brenda Russell, Stephen Bray and Allee Willis.
But there are flaws, too.
The direction is not always as fluid as it should be. Lyrics can be mushy. Walker’s narrative suffers from an absurdly convoluted plot and tonal ambiguities that librettist Marsha Norman can’t seem to fix.
Sad one minute and happy the next, it’s as if the play itself is having mood swings. And, more often than not, a story that’s essentially about Celie’s awakening becomes overshadowed by strong secondary characters.
The passage set in Africa is superfluous, even ludicrous, as if the creators were stretching for their “Lion King” moment, while a telephone conversation in which Celie zips through numerous plot twists feels hasty and contrived.
But to their credit, director Gary Griffin and choreographer Ken Roberson have a penchant for playful dance numbers. (Watch for the honkytonk strut “Push Da Button,” the jazzy “In Miss Celie’s Pants” and the sexy “Brown Betty”). Taking a cue from the lyrics, they create more than a few references to the attitude and movement of birds.
After a somber funeral blues in which the young Celie (Tatiana McConnico) cries over her mother’s coffin, it’s a welcome relief to see pregnant-goose Sofia (Felicia P. Fields) waddling in with hen-pecked husband-in-waiting Harpo (Brando Victor Dixon).
Also delightful is the gaggle of town gossips: Darlene (Virginia Ann Woodruff), Jarene (Maia Nkenge Wilson) and Doris (Kimberly Ann Harris). Celie (LaChanze), a frightened and skittish dove, is courted by preening peacock Shug (Adriane Lenox), who is exceptionally fond of feathers.
Going from blues to ballads, from young girl to old lady, LaChanze inbues Celie with remarkable grace. Lenox’s Shug, often dolled up in shades of red and purple, is the proverbial hooker with the heart of gold; you see why Celie is drawn to her. Though these two must utter some of the most saccharine lyrics (“Too Beautiful for Words,” “What About Love?”), their romance is haunting.
Fields captures the sass, and later the pain, of the buxom Sofia. The underused Saycon Sengbloh makes a wonderful Nettie.
Among the male players, Leggs (as Mister) uses his wildly expressive eyes to excite fear and panic in Celie. Beginning as a cocky rooster, he mellows into an almost likable old fool. As the good-looking Harpo, Dixon gives a nuanced performance as a man who eventually forgoes chauvinism in favor of love.
One thing this “Purple” gets absolutely right is the design. Brian MacDevitt’s lighting is luminous and poetic. Costume designer Paul Tazewell’s gloriously detailed handiwork is pure eye candy. John Lee Beatty’s scenery recalls everything from a slave ship’s hull to the ecstatic visions of Nellie Mae Rowe.
In sum, ”The Color Purple” is a mixture of marvelous moments and rough edges. One can only surmise that it will get better as its journey toward Broadway continues.
The verdict: Promising but uneven.
8 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays; 2:30 and 8 p.m. Saturdays; 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sundays. Through Oct. 17, 2004. $25-$50. Alliance Theatre, 1280 Peachtree St. N.E., Atlanta. 404-733-5000, www.alliancetheatre.org.
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Theater Gael’s “A Man of No Importance”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“A Man of No Importance”
Alfie Byrne is a sweet, elfin man with an asymmetrical face that looks a bit like a collapsed marshmallow. A Dublin bus conductor with the poetry of Oscar Wilde in his soul, he’s a daydreamer, art lover and amateur thespian of such sincerity that it’s comical.
Byrne is also a Roman Catholic troubled by the love that dare not speak its name. His outing and undoing, and subsequent acceptance by his sister and extended family of parish-hall players, is the essential story behind “A Man of No Importance.”
As directed by Freddie Ashley for Theatre Gael, the show is something of a tiny miracle —- a cast of 13 performing a musical of bittersweet complexity in quarters so close you can almost feel the emotions touch your skin.
Who says musical theater has to be done on a Broadway scale with a grandiose budget and ostentatious special effects?
With a handful of props, a single musician and a simple but handsomely burnished mini-proscenium by John Stephens, the troupe turns this drama into a chamber-work-in-a-teapot, admirably sung and for the most part gracefully choreographed.
It helps that “A Man of No Importance” comes with a pretty spiffy pedigree (Terrence McNally’s book, Stephen Flaherty’s music and Lynn Ahren’s lyrics). To that, Ashley adds a shining ensemble that includes Lawrence Salberg as Alfie, Jill Hames as Alfie’s mother hen-ish sister Lily, Justin Tanner as the bus driver with whom he’s smitten, and Winslow Thomas as both his nemesis and his inspiration.
Salberg tenderly captures the naivete and shame of Alfie. When the character decides his St. Imelda’s Players will stage Wilde’s “Salome” and finally decides to act on his sexual impulses, his world collapses. Tanner works nicely as Robbie —- consider his big song, “The Streets of Dublin” —- and even gets a Brando moment in a white T-shirt. Craig Waldrip’s Breton Beret makes an appropriately smarmy seducer and pulls a surprise that you don’t see coming.
But Hames and Thomas easily command the most attention in this cast.
Always solid, Hames soars here as the matronly Lily (“Tell Me Why”), who’s in love with the butcher and St. Imelda’s scenery chomper, Carney (Thomas). Together this pair brings to mind Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett (“Books”) —- a high compliment, indeed. Thomas plays two parts, making an interesting psychological juxtaposition: As Carney, he participates in Alfie’s humiliation; as Wilde, he encourages him to be himself.
In staging this topical story, Theatre Gael is attempting to engage the community in a political dialogue. But one can wager that “A Man of No Importance” will be as significant tomorrow as it is today. Like an inhabitant of Joyce’s “Dubliners,” Alfie wears a public face that may seem to be of small importance.
It’s his yearning, and his emotional victory, that makes him heroic.
Breakdown
8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays; 5 p.m. Sundays. Through Oct. 17. $16-$22. Theatre Gael, 14th Street Playhouse, 173 14th St. N.E., Atlanta. 404-733-4750, www.theatregael.com.
The verdict: A gem.
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Lurid ‘Killer Joe’ mixes sex, death, laughs
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“Killer Joe” — Through Oct. 16.
The most titillating scene on an Atlanta stage involves a hired assassin who’s fond of cowboy boots and 10-gallon hats. Slowly and methodically, the man orders a shy young woman to remove her underclothes and slide into a revealing little black number, which she does in a way that suggests Laura Wingfield discovering her inner Lolita.
We’re just halfway through “Killer Joe” —- Tracy Letts’ lurid thriller set in a trash-strewn Texas trailer —- and the Actor’s Express audience is so quiet you can hear a brassiere drop.
Folks round these parts aren’t used to this kind of the-ate-er.
Visceral, cinematic and claustrophobic, the sordid comedy by the Oklahoma-born playwright has the disturbing electric authenticity of a film made with a hand-held camera. With a superb ear for Southernisms and a fascination with horror and violence, Letts may be the only writer today who summons comparisons with Flannery O’Connor and Wes Craven in the same breath.
Atlanta theatergoers will remember him for his portrayal of George in Alliance Theatre’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” earlier this year. Recently, the Chicago-based artist was catapulted into the spotlight by his Pulitzer Prize finalist, “The Man From Nebraska,” and off-Broadway’s “Bug,” a study in paranoia that’s acquired cult status since opening in February. Now it’s a testament to the risky vision of Actor’s Express artistic director Jasson Minadakis that the city is getting its first taste of this wildly original voice.
But first, a warning: In Tracy Letts’ world, there is no holding back. If full-frontal nudity, explicit language and blood make you squirm, this X-rated adult show ain’t your cup o’ Joe.
Here, Letts gives us the Smiths, next-door neighbors from hell. Poor and uneducated, they live in a mobile home surrounded by barking dogs. They guzzle Budweiser, smoke weed and never turn off the tube.
Stepmother Sharla (Jill Perry) considers it normal to answer the door sans underwear. “Well … I didn’t know who you were!” she tells her stepson, Chris (the hilariously rattled Nick Rhoton). Potbellied patriarch Ansel (a pitch-perfect Larry Larson) parades around in white briefs with a disgusting brown stain on the front. Gross.
Chris, a coke dealer in debt to his increasingly furious suppliers, comes up with the idea of cashing in on his real mother’s life insurance policy. So the clan hires a slick Dallas cop named Joe Cooper (Jeff Portell) to finish her off. When they can’t make the down payment, they put up a “retainer” in the form of the virginal little sister Dottie (Ariel de Man).
By portraying a family that’s unfazed by the thought of premeditated murder and borderline child prostitution, Letts juxtaposes hysterical comic situations with acid social commentary. Sequences slow down to mirror real time, then travel to strange and chaotic destinations.
Joe may be a killer, but unlike the Smiths, he’s polished and articulate. His first date with Dottie is both comic and poignant. She nervously makes tuna casserole. He brings flowers. When Joe fetches a vase off the refrigerator, it makes a sticky-sounding thud.
Ashley Holmes’ costumes and Kat Conley’s inspired set are all of a piece with the deliciously tawdry tone.
The Smiths’ TV antenna is rigged with aluminum foil, their couch is studded with cigarette burns, and a trash can has been fashioned from an empty case of Budweiser stuffed with a plastic bag.
And so it goes.
Minadakis and his devastatingly funny bunch deliver a meticulously crafted show that bristles with sick humor and creepy surprises.
Without a doubt, “Killer Joe” will be the most breathlessly discussed event of the fall season.
The verdict: Sick! Disgusting! You’ll love it! 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays. Also 2 p.m. Sunday and Oct. 10 and 5 p.m. Sept. 26 and Oct. 3. Through Oct. 16. $21.50-$26.75. Actor’s Express, King Plow Arts Center, 887 W. Marietta St. N.W., Suite J-107, Atlanta. 404-607-7469, www.actors-express.com.
