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Friday, January 21, 2005
‘Searching for Eden’ in Roswell
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW: ‘Searching for Eden: The Diaries of Adam & Eve’
And on the eighth day, the Lord said: “Let opposites attract.”
At least that’s the impression you get from Georgia Ensemble Theatre’s “Searching for Eden: The Diaries of Adam & Eve,” a romantic caper by American playwright James Still inspired by Mark Twain’s short stories.
The battle-of-the-sexes comedy follows Adam and Eve from their first meeting in Eden (no, it wasn’t love at first sight) through their fall from grace to their eventual return to Paradise.
Director Robert Farley infuses Twain’s wit with a modern-day sensibility and lets the sparks and barbs fly.
The whimsical set, dreamed up by scenic designer Jacob Ashworth, evokes the innocence of the Garden of Eden with candy-colored flowers, lush greenery and, of course, the apple tree. The softly lit moon and stars in the backdrop give the play a tranquil, bedtime-story feel.
 Innocence is personified by bubbly Eve (Rachel Sorsa), who takes delight in naming all of the creatures and babbling about everything she sees and feels. Bumbling Adam (David Marshall Silverman) doesn’t know what to make of this woman, or her whirlwind of emotions, and tries to flee from her clutch.
But the garden isn’t big enough for the two of them:
She wants to renovate everything, even the constellations in the sky.
He wouldn’t change a thing.
She is lonely.
He likes to be alone.
She says: “He never talks.”
He says: “She never stops.”
Sigh. Ain’t love grand?
The he-said-she-said humor a la “I Love Lucy” coasts with a familiar, comforting rhythm. And the actors have palpable chemistry. Sorsa plays Eve with a sly impishness. Though sometimes channeling an inner ditz that can be grating, she also reveals her character’s vulnerabilities with aplomb. Silverman shines as a simpleton, summoning an everyday guy who gets in touch with his sensitive side.
The second half of the show fast-forwards to the modern age.
With rolling luggage in tow, the couple returns to the garden, now a vacation resort named Eden Park. Sunglasses perched atop her perfectly coiffed head, studio executive Eve barks orders into her cellphone while middle-aged Adam, a couples therapist, dreams of rekindling their romance.
The two are eerily believable as the couple next door, warts and all. Eve whines about work; Adam tries desperately to distract her. Both have adapted remarkably well to modern living —- yet their core differences remain.
There are times when the pair’s nostalgia for Paradise feels forced, and periodic dips into sentimentality make you pray for more amusing repartee. And while some jokes hit their mark, others desperately lack originality. How much mileage can you get from the overplayed “Can you hear me now?”
Like Eve’s mood swings, the show hits highs and lows. It sings when the characters trade clever quips and sinks when the script searches for a greater purpose.
“Searching for Eden” throws out some lofty ideas, but does its best when it sticks to relationship banter.
One of the most piercing lines is Eve’s jab: “The things I loved about you in the beginning are the things that drive me crazy now.”
But from the start, this flawed couple drove each other nuts, and still they couldn’t escape fate: These two were made for each other.
THE 411: 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays; 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays; 2:30 p.m. Sundays. Through Jan. 23. $16-$33. Georgia Ensemble Theatre, Roswell Cultural Arts Center, 950 Forrest St., Roswell. 770-641-1260, www.get.org.
The verdict: Romp through paradise will tickle your ribs, but won’t leave you gasping for air.
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‘Snoogle-Fleejer’ for all ages
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW: “The Little Baby Snoogle-Fleejer.”
“Tell us about the Little Baby Snoogle-Fleejer, Daddy.”
Jimmy Carter says those were the first words out of his sons’ mouths when he returned home from his submarine journeys in the 1940s. The Navy officer and future president had no time to buy souvenirs, so he invented a fantastical adventure series about a heroic monster’s friendship with a boy named Jeremy.
Now Alliance Children’s Theatre director Rosemary Newcott has brought one of Carter’s tales to the stage, using Ron Anderson’s 2003 Springer Opera House adaptation as a blueprint. Thanks to a skillful design team and a cast that finds the comedic gold beneath the fable’s simple contours, “The Little Baby Snoogle-Fleejer” is a veritable treasure chest of puppetry magic, playful music, aquatic ballets and performances that sparkle and shine like seashells.
Anderson frames Carter’s original yarn, published in 1995 with illustrations by daughter Amy, as a story-within-a-story in which a seafaring dad returns home from the deep and wakes his son, Jer. The boy wants a baseball glove, but Anderson’s Carter-inspired father produces a bedside improvisation instead. As the realistic drama dissolves, the actor portraying the dad (Bart Hansard) becomes the Snoogle-Fleejer.
Hansard goes from a crisp white uniform to a costume that resembles an armored car with scales. (Or is it a float?) Hansard, a human jellyroll with a gift for cartoonish performance, makes quite a splash as the adorable Snoog, and when the character burrows his face under his shell like a skittish underwater creature, he’s poignant.
The part of Jer (who in the father’s made-up story doubles as the fatherless and disabled Jeremy) rotates between Scott Beale and Zachary Solomon (who was featured on opening night). No doubt Beale gives a fine performance. But Solomon is so comfortable and assured, his acting so natural and detailed, that the seventh-grader has “future film star” written all over him.
Doubling as Jeremy’s mom and the town’s befuddled lifeguard, Ellen McQueen brings smart and unexpected comic touches to both. Working in Don Knotts crisis mode, her bumbling lifeguard gets entangled in her whistle and her walkie-talkie as she summons the “shurf” (sheriff). And when Jeremy turns up with gold coins, McQueen’s unsuspecting mother is a riot.
As proverbial small-town bully Jimbo, Justin Welborn seems to be channeling Jughead on Red Bull —- clueless, but lightning fast. As Jimbo’s little brother, Hugo, Clifton Guterman is the quintessential nerd; Hugo goes so far as to unknowingly scrutinize Snoog under a magnifying glass. Eeeek! A sea monster! And Sharisa Q. Whatley’s Danielle makes a saucy accomplice for the boys.
“Snoogle-Fleejer” functions as a moral tale that instructs us on tolerance, understanding and friendship. Humans are scared of the harmless Snoog, and Jeremy’s playmates taunt him for being physically slow. When Snoog and Jeremy connect, perceived differences melt, and the entire community —- land- and ocean-lubbers alike —- celebrates.
Newcott layers the story’s machinations with delightfully dreamy underwater sketches in which sea turtles, stingrays and eels jive and high-five with Snoog and Jeremy. Unbelievably, oversize Snoog manages to maneuver his tall tail under a limbo pole. (Scenic and puppet design is by Kat Conley —- with Susan Mickey going solo on Snoog’s get-up.)
For young viewers, these frolicsome touches, set to music by Thom Jenkins, will charm like “The Little Mermaid.” More seasoned theater-heads will find a sophisticated sensibility that echoes Cirque du Soleil, Julie Taymor and Jon Ludwig.
As Snoog says when he’s happy, “Colossal!”
THE 411: 1 and 3:30 p.m. Saturdays-Sundays; 1 and 4:30 p.m. Jan. 29. Through Jan. 30. $12-$15. Alliance Theatre, 1280 Peachtree St. N.E., Atlanta. 404-733-5000, www.alliancetheatre.org.
The verdict: Jimmy Carter’s children’s story gets a first-class Alliance production.
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Theatre Gael’s ‘Lughnasa’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW: “Dancing at Lughnasa”
Theatre Gael chief John Stephens has assembled a young but effectively spirited cast for “Dancing at Lughnasa,” Brian Friel’s memory play based on the secluded world of his aunts —- five spinsterish sisters living in Donegal circa 1936.
So fresh-faced are the actresses playing the moribund Mundy siblings that Stephens, who directed, had to adjust the first-act line in which Agnes declares her age as 35. The actress playing Agnes (Jessie Dougherty) says she’s 30 instead.
What may be harder to believe is that anyone as pretty as Dougherty would be left sitting at home uncourted, reduced to knitting mittens to help fund her sisters’ meager soda-bread existence.
Nevertheless, youth ultimately prevails in this economy-size but resilient production at 14th Street Playhouse. “Lughnasa” —- pronounced LOO-na-sa —- succeeds as a poignant glimpse at the unlived lives and unspoken desires of a generation trapped by poverty and religious convention.
 It does so with a handful of sublimely etched performances —- especially Barbara Cole as Chris, the heartbreakingly hopeful youngest sister and unwed mother of narrator Michael (Nevin Miller); Marci Millard as the hilarious and moving Maggie; and the charismatic Joanna Daniel, as eldest sibling Kate, struggling as the family’s mother hen.
The staging also works without the benefit of theatrical gimmick. The play’s once-celebrated dance sequence —- triggered when a balky wireless spurts to life with an Irish reel, sending the five sisters into paroxysms of tribal release —- holds little transforming magic here. It’s executed with thumping, cloddish realism, just enough to establish the Mundys as creatures of the quotidian, momentarily inspired by spontaneity and the scandalous notion of attending the annual Celtic harvest dance.
The work’s spinal tension —- pagan ritual vs. Catholic devotion —- resonates in haunting fashion as two men disrupt the sisters’ radio days. The first is Father Jack (Larry Davis), their missionary priest brother, who has returned home after a career in Africa. The second is Gerry (Travis Young), the ne’er-do-well father of the narrator, whose unrepentant duplicity is seen as far more destructive than the celebrated polygamy practiced in Father Jack’s former flock.
As the old priest, Davis poses one of the show’s obvious problems, not so much because of his performance, which has an affectionately dotty quality, but because there seems to have been little effort made through costume or makeup to integrate him into the ensemble. The cut of his hair and clothes hardly instructs the audience that he’s a senile missionary put to pasture. He looks more like a bicycle messenger cutting through from Peachtree Street.
 Such details are important in the world of memory, where, as narrator Michael says, “atmosphere is more real than incident.” Still, for the most part, Theatre Gael captures that atmosphere, along with the nostalgic music of Friel’s language, which still reverberates with the echoes of missed opportunity.
THE 411: Through Feb. 20. 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays; 5 p.m. Sundays. $16-$22. 14th Street Playhouse, 173 14th St. N.E., Atlanta. 404-733-4750, www.theatregael.com.
The verdict: A sister act worth catching.
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‘Echoes of Another Man’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW: “Echoes of Another Man.” Through Feb. 12.
More than halfway through Mia McCullough’s “Echoes of Another Man,” there’s a splendid scene in which the brain-transplant patient has a kind of convulsion of creativity. Frantically moving to a Satie score, the painter in the golfer’s body seems to wrestle with fragments of memory, as if by connecting the pieces of his sprawling canvas, he will resolve his cosmic conflict.
It’s oddly telling that the most moving scene of this Actor’s Express world premiere is a textless choreo-painting. No words are spoken, for what’s happening here is no less than a mortal battle for the hero’s splitting soul.
It’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray” meets “Sunday in the Park With George,” if you will.
But such fleeting magic also signals that this philosophical debate on the horrors of modern medicine is still searching for its way. Despite McCullough’s prodigious storytelling gifts, keen ear for dialogue and earnest intentions, the play seems to be taking its cues from a Ouija board. Its message is portentous, its pace deliberate and slow.
On the one hand, you admire the Chicago playwright for taking a preposterous premise, then refusing to verge into “Twilight Zone” territory. On the other, the tone is so absurdly serious, the emotions so clinical, that you find yourself wishing the tale of the portable brain had a little more heart.
Not many people like a long hospital stay. So it’s probably not a good sign that half of the play’s two hours, 45 minutes (intermission included) are spent in designer Rochelle Barker’s pale-turquoise private room, with its beeping machines and clunky tray tables.
Orderlies run in and out, feeding the patient. The audience longs for a sip of levity. And director Jasson Minadakis’ uneven company loses the story’s pulse.
 As the man who goes into a coma as Steve and wakes up with the brain of Claude, Daniel May seems game but ill-equipped for the character’s schizoid journey. More compelling are supporting players Kate Donadio (as Steve’s sweetly vulnerable wife, Katie), Shannon Eubanks (as Claude’s pushy manager-lover, Raina) and Tracey Copeland (as the wise and earthy nurse, Iris). In a baffling casting decision and performance, Addae Moon (Dr. Park) makes his 21st-century Frankenstein more a preening peacock than an ambitious CNN-era researcher. It must be tough for an actor, channeling the mind of one character, the physicality of another —- and dealing with the lovers of both. The playwright sets up a veritable quadruple bypass of relationships. Steve-Claude appears repulsed by Raina and strangely attracted to Katie. But the play too often reads like a soap opera, with Dickensian twists and back stories that are never —- pardon the pun —- fleshed out.
Claude was a diabetic who obviously didn’t take good care of himself. Once he gets a replacement body from a virile young athlete, he suddenly has the will to revisit his roots. But exactly whose past is it?
“Echoes of Another Man” struggles with big questions, emotions and revelations. Where does the corporeal leave off, and the soul begin? Does memory linger in the psyche or the flesh? And where does love reside?
Alas, McCullough’s characters and symbols never shape themselves into a fully operational picture. Thanks to Amy Ferguson, who painted the scenery that represents Steve-Claude’s exploding psyche, this production has moments of hallucinogenic beauty.
But by insisting on realism and seldom exploiting its darkly comic potential, “Echoes of Another Man” has a comatose quality that ultimately flatlines.
THE VERDICT: Some plays have all the brains.
THE 411: 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays. 2 p.m. Sunday and Feb. 6. 5 p.m. Jan. 23 and Jan. 30. Also 8 p.m. Monday. $21.50-$26.75. Through Feb. 12. Actor’s Express, King Plow Arts Center, 887 W. Marietta St. N.W., Suite J-107, Atlanta. 404-607-7469, www.actors-express.com.
