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Friday, October 22, 2004
At Horizon: Hookers with heart
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW: “Café Puttanesca.� Through Nov. 28.
After shedding a shiny purple ensemble for a frou-frou white slip with layers and layers of tulle, the Marquesa does a frantically timed bit of comic nonsense that’s sure to linger long in the memory of giggling fans of Horizon Theatre’s “Café Puttanesca.�
The evening is drawing to a close on the Michael Ogborn musical cabaret, and the well-lubricated hooker is being serenaded by her longtime colleague, the Baroness, in their signature tune, “Rasputin and the Russian Nun.� Engaging in a little après-brothel tomfoolery, circa 1948 Amsterdam, these vulgar, absinthe-minded ladies of the night are the poor man’s answer to such patent-leather sophisticates as Edith Piaf and Christopher Isherwood’s Sally Bowles.
Dusting the mothballs off her novelty number, the high-stepping, heavily rouged and très-Frenchy Marquesa (or Marquie, as her friends call her) has to slide in and out of the dualing roles of Rasputin and the czarina’s queer-tulip courtesan. She does this by constantly manipulating a hairpiece that doubles as the demigod’s whiskers and the fey one’s wispy mane.
It helps considerably that the actress in question is none other than the inimitable LaLa Cochran. She’s a scream.
Directed by Heidi Cline and starring Michelle Lynne Martin as the zaftig Baroness and Kenya Hamilton as the Eliza-Doolittle-in-reverse vamp known as the Duchess, “Café Puttanesca� is charming but flawed — an uneven but entertaining evening of frothy throwaway fun.
As penned by Ogborn and co-lyricist Terrence J. Nolen, its sole plot point is that the blond-tressed Baroness is heading off for the green pastures of Pennsylvania (which one song manages to rhyme with “nymphomania�); thus her coquettish colleagues have gathered for one last night of sousing and grousing about the tawdry state of whore-dom.
The merriment sometimes stagnates between songs.
The 90-minute effort would be a much happier affair sans intermission.
And there’s nary a truly fine singer or dancer in the cast (although you could argue that, as with the strippers of “Gypsy,� that’s precisely the point).
Yet there’s something wonderfully beguiling about these bawdy broads and their liquid limericks. While “Allez-Vous En� has an air of Paris, the overall tone of “Café Puttanesca� is more “peel off� than Piaf. You don’t have to have too florid an imagination to figure out the punchlines of “Gypsy in My Purse� and “Oh, How I Miss the Kaiser.�
But under its glib façade, the revue has ripples of romance and regret, too. An aura of sadness informs Marquesa’s ode to young love (“Artists and Models�), and the cafe’s barkeep (Phillip Webster) and his wife, Rosa, the cook (Denise Arribas), are genuinely in love.
In sum, Ogborn has written a valentine to the golden age of European cabaret.
We may dream of a better cast and a quicker pace. But music director S. Renee Clark keeps the piano tingling. Kenton McGhee’s ridiculous costumes are pure kitschy fun. And in serving up a cornucopia of patter and petticoats, these bosomy tarts win us over with their bigness of heart.
THE VERDICT: You gotta have tart.
8 p.m. Wednesdays-Fridays; 8:30 p.m. Saturdays; 5 p.m. Sundays. Through Nov. 28. $18-$25. Horizon Theatre, 1083 Austin Ave. N.E., Atlanta. 404-584-7450, www.horizontheatre.com.
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‘From Door to Door’ at Jewish Theatre of the South
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW: “From Door to Door.� Through Nov. 14.
Chicago playwright James Sherman’s “From Door to Door� is a bittersweet comedy about the blessings and compromises that three generations of women encounter in their pursuit of love, faith and marriage.
Opening Jewish Theatre of the South’s 10th season, the play explores familiar domestic and psychological territory. But the writing is so ingenious and clearly structured, the performances so affecting and the directing so smart, that you come to think of grandmother Bessie, her daughter Mary and granddaughter Deborah as if they were members of your own family.
The play begins and ends at the same place: Deborah (Pamela Gold) is urging her aging mother, Mary (Marianne Fraulo), to pursue her long-repressed passion for painting. Spinning back in time, the story explains why Mary’s dreams have been shunted away.
Sherman captures these abiding but complicated relationships in a way that’s both culturally authentic and universal. It’s a testament to his considerable skills that he evinces three fully realized and lovingly detailed portraits in the seamless, 90-minute one act.
Director Susan Reid (“Tuesdays With Morrie�) gets sterling work from the cast. \
The action fades in and out of designer Travis George’s set of disconnected panels and doorways, which frees the actors to dance between the numerous scenes without drawing attention to the mechanics of this cyclical play.
The script requires the trio to play their characters at all ages, no small feat, but the actresses do so with grace and credibility. All three women, particularly Judy Leavell as the adorably crotchety Bessie, give readings that are moving and richly nuanced.
The opening scenes flicker from the play’s present (the 1990s) to its past (the ’30s), and Fraulo masters the precise shifts in time with minimal changes in appearance but maximal expressiveness.
In one frame, she’s an aging, self-doubting matriarch; in the next, an optimistic and obedient little girl at her mother’s apron strings; and later, a 21-year-old who’s badgered by her mother to forget art and marry the first man who asks her.
As the story shifts to the next generation, Mary urges Deborah not to marry outside the Jewish faith, even though her daughter is deeply in love with a handsome, kind and successful man. In the end, Deborah’s marriage is less stable than her mother’s and grandmother’s, but she is no less whole, and she finds the professional success that eluded her mom.
Under her armor and Russian accent, Bessie conceals residual fears of anti-Semitism and vivid memories of her youthful romance. As played with a sparkling wit by Leavell, Bessie softens with age, and becomes more warm and human. Always solid and workmanlike, here Leavell sails to delightful and terrific new heights.
At the end, as Chris Crawford’s lighting goes down on the face of Mary, this familial canvas is suffused with a sense of lessons learned and hope for the future.
In 1995, Jewish Theatre of the South staged Sherman’s “Beau Jest� as its inaugural production. Since then, the ensemble has become a vital part of our cultural landscape, its work a gift that sustains and nurtures us all.
THE VERDICT: Superb.
8 p.m. Wednesdays-Thursdays and Saturdays (no show Fridays); 3 p.m. Sundays. Through Nov. 14. $18-$26. Jewish Theatre of the South, 5342 Tilly Mill Road, Dunwoody. 770-395-2654, www.atlantajcc.org
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Volkov conducts ASO
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Concert Review
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.
It’s not often three generations of musicians make a mark on a single Atlanta Symphony Orchestra concert, but it happened Thursday.
The youngest was on the podium. Israeli conductor Ilan Volkov is just 28 — still a toddler on the conducting curcuit — and has already established himself as a serious artist of the highest potential.
Wisely, the tall, lanky maestro is gaining experience away from the big-city spotlights: he’s currently in charge of Glasgow’s BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. He’s been an ASO guest three times in as many years.
His Thursday program centered on the music of birds (and other twittering beasts).
He opened with a fluent, passionate account of Dvorak's Gothic tone poem "The Wood Dove," from an old Czech folk tale. The music graphically depicts a troubled young widow who is courted by a handsome lad, gets remarried, but still can't slip the nagging feeling that poisoning her first hubby was wrong. At his grave, the cooing of a wood dove -- the angel of death, perched in an oak tree -- sends her over the edge of sanity.
Winningly, Volkov played up key scenes, such as the widow’s insincere sobbing at the beginning, depicted by repeated cascades from the strings. “Boo hoo hoo,” she sobs. People who’d read Nick Jones’ program summary beforehand got a laugh out of those for-public-consumption tears.
Stravinsky’s “The Firebird,” in the complete, 45-minute ballet score, closed the evening. This is unbeatable music for the concert hall. We love the thick Russian romanticism and glittery exoticism of this, the composer’s first hit.
We love knowing that most of the ballet is drawn from the style of his teacher, Rimsky-Korsakov, but in those climactic moments, when the magical Firebird's spell enchants the evil-doers, it's the genius Stravinsky shining through, for the first time in his life.
The ASO played with force and precision, and Volkov had all the essentials in place, save one: his interpretation lacked vivid personality. The music overflows with Stravinsky's buoyant energy, which makes it easy for a conductor to simply direct traffic and still take credit for a satisfying show.
But we've come to expect more from Volkov. I wanted the sense that Thursday's performance was a one and only, that it was an event. Instead, Volkov led one of thousands of fine "Firebirds."
Back to the generations thing mentioned earlier. Principal oboist Jonathan Dlouhy, who joined the ASO when Volkov was three years old, here played the solo in Mozart's C Major Concerto for Oboe.
Before wetting his lips to begin, Dlouhy picked up a microphone and, with a deep bow of gratitude, introduced his own teacher who was seated in the audience: John Mack, the legendary former oboist of the Cleveland Orchestra.
Unlike pop music, which so often is about dissing your elders, classical music gains richness from generations of accumulated experience. Dlouhy, via Mack and HIS great teacher, the genius Frenchman Marcel Tabuteau, is a living link to an unbroken tradition that goes back to the invention of the instrument.
In cognac-warm tones, Dlouhy’s approach to the concerto was as our guide. There was no flash to his interpretation but rather a gentle sharing of his beloved Mozart.
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