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‘Lonely Hunter’ a theatrical landmark
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW: ”The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.” Through April 24.
The verdict: An historic occasion for Southern drama.
In the opening and closing moments of the Alliance Theatre’s ”The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter,” deaf-mute John Singer actually talks.
He says he learned how to speak as a young boy but that it never felt right. Then he met his friend Antonapoulos, a fat, Greek candy-maker who was also deaf and mute, and there was never a reason to utter another word. Alas, when Antonapoulos got carted off to a mental asylum, Singer’s world collapsed.
Such is the sorrowful beginning of Carson McCullers’ celebrated novel of personal and political passions, a sprawling portrait of a small Georgia town in the depths of the Great Depression. A cluttered, clamoring tale of drunks, fanatics and lost souls, ”Lonely Hunter” is most often remembered as a classic story of initiation about McCullers’ autobiographical character, Mick Kelly, a restless teenage tomboy who dreams of becoming a symphonic conductor.
For dramatic purposes, playwright Rebecca Gilman and director Doug Hughes wisely center this epic on Singer, who pines for Antonapoulos while the rest of the townspeople project their troubles, dreams and desires onto this silent beacon of kindness.
Opening Wednesday night, this world premiere is a lovingly crafted, sensitively rendered, psychologically devastating evening of theater. Co-produced by The Acting Company of New York, it’s a landmark achievement from a high-profile Broadway director (”Frozen”), a gifted playwright (”Spinning into Butter”) and a theater (”The Color Purple”) that, should it continue this season’s momentum, is poised for national acclaim.
Too often an adaptation of a claustrophobic, out-of-focus manuscript merely exacerbates the rough edges. This one smooths them out.
Structurally, Gilman has condensed and refined the swirling panorama into a logical circle of clear, precise images. Hughes, whose ”Doubt” opened Thursday on Broadway, has separated dense strands of material into a quiet marvel of a production. And Henry Stram, who plays Singer, gives a singularly expressive, heart-shattering performance. His characterization is so intuitive, so minutely detailed, that it makes the notion of muteness irrelevant.
Though McCullers’ 1940 novel dances around the nature of the deaf-mutes’ relationship, here it’s treated as a love story, a decision that clarifies Singer’s motives. He clings to his bulky friend (sweetly played by John Sierros) as if he were a Teddy Bear, cries out when they are separated and never recovers.
Ron Cephas Jones is brilliant as the solemn Dr. Copeland, an African-American who is embittered by the treatment of his people. Roslyn Ruf (as Copeland’s daughter, Portia) imbues her character with courage, grace and authority. As the dissipated labor agitator Jake Blount, Andrew Weems has one of the few truly comic roles, and he barks and drools appropriately.
‘Tis a pity, then, that New Yorker Julie Jesneck’s misguided Southern accent turns Mick into a Hollywood stereotype of a gangly redneck girl with an emerging butch streak. Sorry, but ”Fried Green Tomatoes” this ain’t. Jesneck’s approach feels ridiculous and affected. When Mick cries at the sound of music, you don’t believe for a minute that her tears are real. This is bad acting, and any number of Atlanta actresses could do better.
For its part, the design team makes choices that are beautiful, sleek and evocative, yet technologically sophisticated.
Neil Patel’s set, a wooden scroll with a single window, recalls a prison, an apt touch, considering that nearly every character is isolated in some fashion. David Van Tieghem’s pitch-perfect soundscape murmurs like a beating heart, pulsating toward its inexorable finale.
Michael R. Chybowski illumines the stage with shafts and pinpoints of glowing light. Jan Hartley’s projections of handwriting samples, interior monologues and graffiti come off like digital magic, while her projections of sepia-toned photographs give a sense of a place that’s both frozen in time and constantly changing. Catherine Zuber’s costumes are appropriate to the period — never showy. All this makes smart visual shorthand.
In sum, ”Lonely Heart” is a remarkable treatment of a work by a hypersensitive young artist who felt great empathy for her characters — black, white, Jewish and homosexual — who are often shortchanged both spiritually and financially. Unlike most dramas, which take an evening to evoke a catharsis, this one grabs you from the get-go. What’s happening at the Alliance will leave you in a state of sadness and awe.
THE 411: 8 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays; 2:30 and 8 p.m. Saturdays; 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sundays. Through April 24. $15-$45. Alliance Theatre, 1280 Peachtree St. N.E., Atlanta. 404-733-5000, www.alliancetheatre.org.
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By Rose McConnell
April 8, 2005 10:02 AM | Link to this
I think the reviewer understates how badly the acting interferes with the stage craft. Not only did the actors yell their lines at the audience throughout the entire performance, but the accents were atrocious-perhaps a minor failing in NY (how would they know), but a distinct distraction here in Atlanta. It was hard to sense that Carson McCuller’s was speaking of both our interior monologues that distract us as well as our outward busyness, in the midst of so much yelling. They need to do better.
By Tom Cartwright
April 13, 2005 11:36 AM | Link to this
The reviewer must have seen a different production than I.Thank goodness for the dramaturg’s notes. This is a play that, if one was unfamiliar with the novel and had not read the notes, the main themes that the original author developed in the novel were woefully obfuscated. The play contained poor character development. The “southern accents”—particularly spoken by actor Adam Green, to me the weakest link in the cast- were so bad as to be distracting.