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Thursday, October 7, 2004
‘Tuesdays With Morrie’ at Theatre in the Square
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW: “Tuesdays With Morrie.� Through Nov. 14.
Morrie Schwartz, the irascible philosopher at the center of Mitch Albom's stupendously successful memoir, knows a thing or two about the joy of life and the inevitability of death, about dancing the tango and the fox trot, about love and forgiveness, about Ted Turner’s megalomania and Ted Koppel's hair.
Albom, a Detroit Free Press sportswriter, sat with his old Brandeis University sociology teacher as he lay dying of Lou Gehrig's disease and recorded the old man's whimsical philosophy. A consistent New York Times best seller since 1997, “Tuesdays With Morrie� has been made into a TV movie and a play, which is getting its first Atlanta production at Marietta's Theatre in the Square.
“Morrie� is relentlessly optimistic, and sappy to a fault. But thanks in no small part to playwright Jeffrey Hatcher's sure-footed adaptation, Susan Reid’s expert direction and the heart-melting work of David Milford (Morrie) and David Marshall Silverman (Mitch), the show overcomes its sentimental veneer to become a rich, rewarding and insightful evening of theater.
Even the most hardhearted cynics will be reduced to puddles.
Milford, who has a long and impressive résumé as one of the city's hardest-working actors, nails the part of the indefatigable Morrie. With his receding, snow-white hairline and nervous tremor, Morrie attacks death with wit.
“My funeral was last week,� he deadpans to Mitch. (Seems he arranged a “living� eulogy so he could enjoy it.) “If I get reincarnated, I want to come back as a gazelle!� he shouts near the end.
When the conversation turns to Turner's attempt to buy CBS, Morrie exclaims, “He doesn't need a network! He needs a hug!�
Morrie, you see, is unafraid to express physical affection or to cry like a baby. He urges the ambitious, overachieving Mitch to find inner peace, to be as human as he can be and to forgive all grievances — even if the other person is 100 percent wrong. “Let it go.�
Silverman gives a winning performance as the workaholic transformed by his mentor’s philosophy of selflessness. Ultimately, Mitch’s uptight exterior is cracked wide open by Morrie’s infinite generosity and compassion.
A tale about how friendship can be an antidote to loneliness, “Tuesdays With Morrie� is, after a fashion, a love story. We know that when Morrie tells his young soul mate and surrogate son: “I like myself better when I'm with you.�
Albom likes to say his reunion with the man he called “Coach� after a 16-year absence was like returning to class for a final lesson. Theatre in the Square earns extra credit for handling Albom's labor of love with such gentleness and sensitivity.
Milford and Marshall are menschen made in heaven. “Tuesdays With Morrie� gets an A.
THE VERDICT: It’s soooo sweet. A three-hankie performance.
8 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays; 2:30 and 7 p.m. Sundays (no 7 p.m. show Nov. 14). Also 2:30 p.m. Nov. 10. Through Nov. 14. $18-$32. Theatre in the Square, 11 Whitlock Ave., Marietta. 770-422-8369, www.theatreinthesquare.com.
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Jack in the Black Box does Kerouac
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW: “On the Road With Jack, an Original Performance Inspired by the Work of Jack Kerouac.� Though Wednesday, Oct. 13.
A hipster sits at a dark corner table, scribbling in a notebook as a trio plays jazz.
These Beat-era atmospherics are the prelude to “On the Road With Jack, an Original Performance Inspired by the Work of Jack Kerouac.â€?
But Kerouac fans looking for the writings of the Beat icon won’t find them. Instead, an ensemble delivers an exhilarating evening of song, comedy, theater and media, most of it original material.
Taking off from Kerouac’s “On the Roadâ€? theme, Rachel Craw, Maia Knispel, Shawn Hale and Tyler Owens quickly accelerate into bright if uneven sketches that satirize America’s obsession with the highway. The humiliations and dangers of car travel hilariously conflict with the romance of the road.
In a glimpse at a roadside diner, Hale takes charge as a waitress in drag, her big hair “as if out of a Dairy Queen Machine.� Her bosom nearly bursting from her starched white uniform, she belts out Merman-style blues about nighthawks at the Waffle House-like place.
Later, Owens and Knispel give off sparks as a Sonny and Cher-type duo, sending up rock-concert patter in a hilarious, upbeat dirge to road kill — “Dear Animal.�
Dennis Coburn’s Mr. Boom, in porkpie hat, dark glasses and goatee, rises throughout the evening to perform original Beat-style poetry. One piece lampoons the hectic pace of modern life, imagining an ATM machine that also spits out junk food. His work mocks the easy profundity of the genre while succeeding at the same verbal high jinks.
When the evening shifts focus from exterior to interior journeys, Craw stands at an ironing board in skirt and slip top, delivering a monologue about her character's anxiety disorder. The spooked young woman is ironing her blouse for her first group therapy meeting. When at last she pulls on the top and stands fully clothed, she appears whole, capable of healing. But that possibility is shattered when she suddenly feels a chill. Her bravado wavering, she wraps herself in an overcoat, then bolts the stage.
The trio of lead guitar Jesse Lauter, bass Michael Feinberg and sax Cory Takeuchi deserves a special salute, handling everything from John Coltrane and Duke Ellington (“Take the A Train�) to rock standards.
When at last a famous quote from Kerouac's iconic “On the Road� flashes on a screen near the evening's conclusion, it hardly seems necessary to inspire us further. A final, powerful slide show glowing with images of home, accompanied by the recorded, heart-touching “100 Mile Dance� by Drew de Man of the musical group New River City, reassures us that the road can lead to a happy destination.
THE VERDICT: Verdict: A groovy road trip.
8 p.m. Monday-Wednesday; $12. Jack in the Black Box Theatre Company at Actor’s Express, King Plow Arts Center, 887 W. Marietta St. N.W. 404-432-9847.
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‘Richard II’ at the Shakespeare Tavern
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW: “Richard II.� Through Oct. 30.
Last season, the New American Shakespeare Tavern staged what scholars call the Henriad, the history cycle that includes “Richard II,� the “Henry IV� plays and “Henry V.� By all accounts, Jeff McKerley's performance as the self-sabotaging Richard II was revelatory, so the theater decided to explore it further this year.
It’s a welcome choice.
“Richard II� is a tough row to hoe and thus rarely performed. Virtually plotless, the play is about the slow abdication of an inept politician who happens to be a silver-tongued poet.
The Georgia Shakespeare Festival’s 2000 version, starring the regal Chris Kayser, was stylish and lovely to look at but dramatically flat.
Tavern Artistic Director Jeff Watkins’ take is likewise long-winded, and might benefit if some of the nonessential speeches were deleted. But when the players pause to luxuriate in the bard’s magisterial verse, it’s a glorious, soul-stirring affair — inertia redeemed by language.
While “Richard II� is technically a history, I think of it as a tragedy, a love story, a meditation on time. “Shakespeare composed ‘Richard II’ as an extended metaphysical lyric, which ought to be impossible for a history play,� says the critic Harold Bloom, “but for Shakespeare everything is possible.�
It’s impossible not to be moved by John of Gaunt’s deathbed paean to the sea-battered, windswept beauty that is England, and Eric Brooks metes out the soliloquy with grace and restraint: “This happy breed of men, this little world, this precious stone set in the silver sea . . . this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England, this nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings . . . �
McKerley, who has a reputation as an irrepressible comic fool, steps into the garb of Richard a bit preciously at first. But when he sits to ponder the intrigue that’s plagued the court through the ages, he brings time to a stop. In a divine stroke, the actor uses his finger to mock the “little pin� that bores through the castle wall, thereby alluding to his final speech: “Whereto my finger, like a dial’s point, is pointing still. . . . � Wow.
Melanie Walker’s account of the queen is also finely wrought — although it’s unfortunate that her headdress looks like a gold-lamé hot water bottle. As the Duchess of York, the dainty Jackie Prucha proves again why she’s one of the city’s most intelligent actresses of a certain age. Quivering with a kind of nervous energy, she nonetheless manages to find the place where courage and kindness strike equipoise.
My major quibble is with the choice of Maurice Ralston as the usurping Bolingbroke. The actor turns his lines into a singsong patter that doesn’t make sense. This Bolingbroke is sufficiently smarmy, but his rhythm is off.
That said, I’m happy the Tavern has brought back this last vestige of its Henriad. “Richard II� is an autumnal feast, a touch of sweet-sweet sorrow.
As the doomed monarch puts it: “Let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of kings.�
THE VERDICT: A feast of words
7:30 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays. Through Oct. 30. $19.50-$24.50. New American Shakespeare Tavern, 499 Peachtree St. N.E., Atlanta. 404-874-5299, www.shakespearetavern .com.
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Review: Aurora Theatre’s “Das Barbecü”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In the hilarious opening minutes of the country-western opera spoof “Das Barbecü,� the Aurora Theatre crams our confused heads with Wagner’s 16-hour “Ring� Cycle. That’s the four-opera epic where fat singers traditionally wear horned helmets and belt their lungs out about everything from gods and giants to drugs and incest. It’s really about the meaning of love.
There’s a lot of plot to cover. So in a mad-cap rush of information, the “Barbecü� cast, under David Crowe’s whip-smart direction, uses flashcards, gold hula-hoops and a lecture on narcolepsy to force-feed us the story.
Very funny, but it’s still too complicated.
So they start over, beginning a comically sentimental Texas-style musical about an arrogant man who has a house built and can’t make the payments and so steals a golden ring — the power of the universe — for payment, then tries to steal it back. When his daughter disobeys him, he puts her to sleep inside a magic circle of fire, which is broken by his heroic grandson, who instantly falls in love with her (his aunt) till he (the young hero) gets tricked by a family of dastardly schemers who want the ring for themselves, but — even the best plans can go awry — the world is set on fire, then flooded. Curtain.
Summarizing the outrageous story is the point. Commissioned by the Seattle Opera to help novices understand Wagner’s “Der Ring des Nieblungen,� “Barbecü� is based on Wagner’s plot but not his music. Scott Warrender’s score is all easy-flowing pop-country — with nods to honky tonk, Western swing and Hank Williams — highlighted by hummable tunes like “A Ring of Gold in Texas� and “Makin’ Guacamole.�
Jim Luigs’ book and lyrics are saucy and sly. His jokes are hit or miss, but there’s a warm glow when he shapes his words for romantic exchanges. He gives the characters, for all the absurdity, flickers of humanity.
The real delight comes from the Aurora’s alert cast, with five actors covering some 30 roles on a set that could double as a coyote-country saloon. It helps, too, that the fiddle-guitar pit band, led by Ann-Carol Pence, give sure-footed musical accompaniment.
Brandon O’Dell, with a light, pleasant singing voice, plays the gawky hero Seigfried, the dwarf villain Alberich and a cancan-dancing soothsayer in drag, among other roles. His chemistry with Marcie Millard, as Brünnhilde, in the Texas two-step dance number “Slide a Little Closer,� is surprisingly intimate.
Sandra Benton, authoritative in voice and given some choice lines addressed directly to the audience, holds the show together. As the long-suffering wife Fricka, she plays to stereotypes, both sassy and tormented. As hippy-dippy earth-mother Erda, she’s just serene enough to be believable. It doesn’t matter that Anthony P. Rodriguez (Aurora’s artistic director) can’t hold a tune: He plays all his characters with rude, crude bluster, shades of John Belushi. The energy level soars when he’s on stage.
Then there’s Aimee Diane Ariel, who has the least to sing yet is perversely charismatic as the love-starved Gutrune, a trashy, big-haired pip-squeak who runs around in cowboy boots and a wedding dress. More than the others, she owns her biggest role in “Barbecü� — and gives this alternate-universe “Ring� Cycle a oddly compelling reason for being.
THEATER REVIEW
“Das Barbecü�by Scott Warrender and Jim Luigs
8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays and 2:30 p.m. Saturdays-Sundays. Through Oct. 24. $18-$25. Aurora Theatre, 3087-B Main St., Duluth, GA, 770-476-7926, www.auroratheatre.com.
The verdict: Brünnhilde goes Honky Tonk.
