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Friday, March 4, 2005
ASO plays Dawson and Gershwin
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
CONCERT REVIEW
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Friday in Symphony Hall. Program repeats Saturday at 8 p.m. www.atlantasymphony.org.
“A Dawson Celebration” is the name of Emory University’s three-day symposium on African-American music, race and identity. For these discussions and concerts, which conclude tonight, the starting point is Alabama-born composer William Dawson (1899-1990).
The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra is contributing, too, performing Dawson’s most famous work, the “Negro Folk Symphony.”
As heard in the ASO’s taut, committed performance Friday in Symphony Hall, conducted by Robert Spano, Dawson’s symphony is in a conventional, late-19th-century European style.
Premiered in 1934, however, it was conservative in the extreme. Where Dvorak and Brahms, two audible models, dipped into their homelands’ Czech or Gypsy dance themes for inspiration, Dawson’s innovation was to incorporate spirituals into his music.
His symphonic ideas are interesting and polished, his orchestrations are colorful, and the logic is compelling through all three movements. It’s a capable, engaging symphony, and I suspect that its infrequent but secure place in the concert hall — the ASO plays it every five or 10 years — seems about fair when you balance its quality (and its role in U.S. musical history) with the vastness of the active symphonic repertoire.
In performance, it’s plain that the Dawson lacks the snap of genius, which elevates a potent folk melody into a joyously memorable tune.
This brings us to George Gershwin, the best pure tunesmith America has ever had. His shortcoming concerns his lack of craft and formal musical education. If only Gershwin had had Dawson’s technical polish! (How’s that for dispelling all those nasty stereotypes? Here the white Jewish guy was the natural, “intuitive” talent and the black man was the disciplined intellectual. Perhaps they each needed a little of the other’s strength.)
The ASO’s concert performance of “Porgy and Bess” strung together about 45 minutes of highlights. “Summertime,” “I Got Plenty o’ Nuttin’,” “Bess, You Is My Woman Now” — these are peerless numbers in the Great American Songbook, even if, as a complete opera, “Porgy” often feels lumpy in the theater.
The glee clubs of Spelman and Morehouse colleges joined three vocal soloists, who covered all the parts.
Atlanta native Indra Thomas’ enormous voice can be thrilling — her soprano holds mystery and charisma — but her diction was muddy and she didn’t invest much emotion. Bass Kevin Deas’ singing was robust and clean, if a bit wooden. Thus theatrical tenor Michael Forest, who sang Sportin’ Life’s shyster anthem “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” was allowed to carry off the show in grand fashion.
Permalink | | Categories: Classical Music
‘Of Mice and Men’ at Roswell’s GET
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW: “Of Mice and Men.” Through March 13.
Lennie, the sweet, simple-minded giant at the heart of Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men,” has a soft spot for furry creatures. He carries mice in his pocket, dreams of raising rabbits by the hutch-full and gets so excited about a new puppy that he inadvertently squishes it to death.
Flirtatious women with baby-doll looks can also be problematic.
Early in Steinbeck’s stage adaptation of his 1937 novella, Lennie’s companion George hints of such dangers to come when he tells his friend to hide in a stand of bulrushes should he ever get in trouble.
Steinbeck’s Depression-era story may be laden with biblical portents and outsize drama. But as a meditation on the social inequities that define race, class and what we now call “learning disabilities,” it packs a tragic wallop.
In her fluid and finely detailed Georgia Ensemble Theatre production, director Shannon Eubanks spins Steinbeck’s simple narrative into a kind of sprawling Western that captures the dark, pent-up passions of the heart. Though the play moves a bit slowly at times and a couple of so-so performances underscore the material’s maudlin streak, Mark Kincaid turns the difficult character of Lennie into an acting tour de force.
If you didn’t read “Mice” in junior high, all you need to know is that George (Steve Coulter) and Lennie are hobo travelers who stick together through thick and thin. They fantasize about getting a little place together so they can “live off the fat o’ the land.”
At the California ranch where they seek shelter and work as barley bundlers, they encounter a group of unsympathetic ruffians —- including sulky Curley (Brian Crawford) and African-American outcast Crooks (Neal A. Ghant) —- as well as like-minded dreamer Candy (Michael Cole) and the sage and salty Slim (David Crowe).
These are sad men all.
But Curley’s wife (Kathleen Link) is the loneliest soul in the bunch, and it’s her neediness that eventually dooms the innocent Lennie.
Though Coulter’s George is a sturdy amalgamation of kindness and exasperation, the unfortunate truth is that this gifted actor isn’t doing much that we haven’t seen before. (This performance seems to repeat the work he did in “Ah, Wilderness!” at Theater Emory.) Wearing his sexual insecurities on his sleeve, Crawford’s Curley is appropriately snarly; Ghant encapsulates Crooks’ journey from anger to sympathy; and Crowe’s Slim is so perfect you can’t help but wonder if he might not make a better George than Coulter.
While Cole’s account of one-handed Candy can be mawkish, the hardworking ensemble steers the ship mostly in the right direction, and set designer David Manuel turns the barren Western landscape into a bustlin’ bunkbed beehive.
In the end, though, it’s Kincaid’s vivid and virtuosic performance that makes the evening so memorable.
Lennie bumbles his speech, constantly forgets his next move, bursts into laughter at the most inopportune times and sweetly tries to assuage his friend’s impatience. (Forget the ketchup, George!). At the end of the day, “Of Mice and Men” is a peculiar kind of love story, and George’s sacrifice of Lennie is an act of terror and tenderness.
Are you ready to be heartbroken?
THE VERDICT: From mouse to tears.
THE 411: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday; 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday; 2:30 p.m. Sunday. Through March 13. $16-$33. Georgia Ensemble Theatre, Roswell Cultural Arts Center, 950 Forrest St., Roswell. 770-594-6232, www.roswellgov.com.
Permalink | | Categories: Theater
‘Take Me Out’ to Marietta
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW: “Take Me Out.” Through March 27.
Baseball, apple pie and hot dogs: That’s what America is all about, right?
If you believe that, you probably think Harry Truman is still president.
According to Richard Greenberg’s “Take Me Out,” the story of a baseball star who decides to come out of the closet, America’s favorite pastime (and by extension the very soul of the republic) is really a festering sore of racism, homophobia, greed and hypocrisy.
Well, blow me away. Anyone who reads the papers knows that’s not exactly an original idea.
“Take Me Out,” which won the 2003 Tony Award for best play, is precisely the kind of work for which phrases like “scathing indictment” and “withering expose” were created. Except when they take their clothes off, which they often do, none of Greenberg’s characters, including the gay hero, end up looking too good.
An overblown potboiler posing as social critique, “Take Me Out” is too serious for its own good, has too many agendas and is as flawed and lacking in self-awareness as most of its characters.
That said, Theatre in the Square’s gutsy new production is as irresistible as a tabloid tell-all. It’s also likely to be one of the season’s most talked-about shows.
Narrated in memory style by Kippy Sunderstrom (Daniel May in top comic form), a player for the fictional New York Empires, “Take Me Out” replays the events following a news conference in which poster boy Darren Lemming (Brandon Dirden) admits he’s homosexual.
When the team goes into a slump, pitcher Shane Mungitt (Travis Young) arrives to reverse the losing streak. A man with a dark past, he’s all bottled up. Then one day, he gives a news conference and slurs his black, Latino and Asian teammates. As a coup de grace, he says showering next to a “faggot” makes him nervous.
Uh-oh. Remember John Rocker?
It’s a disappointing stereotype that the team’s No. 1 bigot is a Southern redneck. At the same time, the Latino players call the Japanese player a “Nip,” and when a teammate tries to embrace the Japanese hitter with genuine affection, he gets called a “faggot.” Welcome to the United Nations of prejudice and homophobia.
Everyone in this cruel game is a mess. Lemming (played with sly coolness by Dirden) ends up wishing his best friend dead and harasses Mungitt in the shower. Mungitt becomes a victim of his own ignorance and the public’s impulse to judge. Portrayed with sadness and an authentic dialect by Young, he’s the ultimate loser —- twice abandoned by society.
Fortunately, Matthew Myers brings great comic zeal to the part of Mason Marzac, Lemming’s gay financial adviser who ends up becoming baseball’s most ardent poet.
Director Alan Kilpatrick coaxes superb performances from his cast. These actors act like baseball jocks, and no one looks uncomfortable in the long, uninhibited nude scenes. Linda Patterson’s uniforms are crisp white and bright blue. And John Thigpen’s set easily converts from locker room to sleek communal shower.
Greenberg’s emotionally adrenalized characters do little to illuminate the complex personalities and politics of the sport. Better writers and filmmakers have waxed poetical about the game.
But it’s a testament to the spunk of Marietta’s Theatre in the Square that it has programmed this edgy script without apology. Like Lemming and Mungitt, the theater knows a thing or two about controversy and sensationalism.
After the theater produced “Lips Together, Teeth Apart” in 1993, the Cobb County Commission cut all public arts funding because of homosexual references in the Terrence McNally play. The elected officials said gay themes weren’t compatible with county values.
Twelve years later, it’s no small victory that our artists are setting the standards of taste —- not the politicians.
The verdict: Shock jocks make uneven play irresistible.
THE 411: 8 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays; 2:30 p.m. Sundays. Through March 27. $20-$25. Theatre in the Square, Alley Stage, 11 Whitlock Ave., Marietta. 770-422-8369, www.theatreinthe square.com.
