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Tuesday, April 5, 2005
‘Foreigner’ at Theatrical Outfit
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW: “The Foreigner.” Through April 24. The verdict: Yee-hi. This here story shore is funny.
Playwright Larry Shue once described himself as a stammering, stuttering man who was afraid to order a hamburger. Working in Japan, he observed that the natives would forgive a person’s bad behavior if they knew he was a foreigner.
Shue, who died in a 1985 plane crash, combines these elements in his 1983 farce, “The Foreigner,” about a shy British traveler who pretends he doesn’t speak English when he finds himself at a fish camp in fictional Tilghman County, Georgia. A raucous comedy about the hazards of disguise, language and bigotry, “The Foreigner” is now getting a punch-drunk treatment at Theatrical Outfit.
Directed by Kate Warner, the former Outfit managing director who recently replaced Sean Daniels as artistic director of Dad’s Garage, the show is laugh-out-loud funny and a delirious workout for a group of Atlanta’s most nimble crackpot comedians —- including the irrepressibly nutty, shamefully underused Jill Jane Clements.
As Betty Meeks, Clements seems to take her cues from the creatures that inhabit the woods outside her clueless character’s rustic retreat. Betty, who tells us that she once had a pet skunk, has the twitchy, blank look of a squirrel. Heck, she’s so country she thinks that Malaysia is a “she” and that aborigines come from Ottawa.
No wonder, then, that Betty becomes fascinated with the so-called foreigner that her friend Froggy (Chris Kayser) drops off at the lodge. Suddenly a woman who’s never felt compelled to be even an armchair traveler has an exotic playmate named “Cha-oo-lee,” as Froggy calls Charlie (John Benzinger).
For reasons that become clear as the story unfolds, the Rev. David Lee (Joe Knezevich) wants to buy unsuspecting Betty’s ramshackle retreat, where he’s ensconced with his fiancee, Catherine (Wendy Melkonian), and her dumb-as-his-thumb brother, Ellard (Dan Triandiflou).
Benzinger sketches his character with a stealthy perversity that’s well-suited to Charlie’s social invisibility, and Triandiflou turns Ellard into a hilariously befuddled hero. After Froggy has a good time cooking up the impromptu plan, Charlie makes his own mischief with the mentally challenged Ellard. He’s also able to eavesdrop and undermine the dark schemes that will eventually be revealed.
Owen Musser may turn out to be the most depraved character in the lot, but Scott Warner gets amazing mileage from the redneck’s delight in insulting Charlie. Melkonian finds layers of irony in former-debutante Catherine, who is by turns bored, bitter, betrayed and smitten.
The problem with “The Foreigner” —- which relies too much on well-trod Southern stereotypes —- is that Shue backs himself into a corner that he can’t get out of. Just as the audience settles into the rhythm of giddy one-liners, the action makes a sudden creepy turn that confuses the tone.
Fortunately, this ensemble has the technical finesse to transform the thin material into a door-slamming, scenery-chomping exercise in wretched excess and endless buffoonery. If you are hungry for shameless belly laughs, this show will go down like “Greater Tuna” casserole. Cheap but tasty.
THE 411: 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays; 2:30 p.m. Sundays. Through April 24. $16.20-$43.20. Theatrical Outfit, Balzer Theater at Herren’s, 84 Luckie St., Atlanta. 404-577-5257, www.theatricaloutfit.org.
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Ashlee Simpson plays Gwinnett
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Dear Diary,
Ohmigod. We played Atlanta on Monday night, and it was totally the best show ever.
The gig was actually in the Atlanta suburbs — this place called the Gwinnett Arena — but whatevs. A whole bunch of girls about my age (and a few of their boyfriends) made it out to the show, and they reminded me why it’s soooo great to be Ashlee Simpson.
I have the best fans. They’ve stuck with me through what has been, like, the worst year in human history. I told them that during the show, and they knew what I was talking about without me having to spell it all out for them, which was good, because it would’ve taken forever to recap that whole “SNL” lip synching thing, and the time I got booed at the Orange Bowl, and the 372,000 people who’ve signed that awful online petition to get me to stop performing. Jerks!
Anyway, Monday was all good. We rawked! From the moment I stomped on stage and my drummer pushed the butt…er, I mean, from the moment the band kicked into gear, everything just seemed to work.
I thot my voice sounded really good. Lately people have been telling me that I kind of sing like a teen-pop version of Amy Ray from some group called the Indigo Girls. Apparently our voices are both earthy. Don’t know about that. But I do know that I sang really hard. I breathed into the mic, and I ad libbed, and if you looked closely you could see my throat straining. Real singers have lots of throat strain.
We played a whole bunch of songs from my record “Autobiography” (duh), and because that’s the only record I have we did some other things to stretch the show out to a whole hour.
We did a mini acoustic set, which didn’t really work very well — softer songs make me kind of anxious — but I’m glad we at least made the effort to shake things up. We also played songs by the Pretenders, Blondie and Madonna, which I love because they’re from the ’80s, the decade I was born in.
Also, I let my bandmates play little solos while I changed clothes. I was happy to do it. I really couldn’t do this without my band. Really.
For the encore we played “Pieces of Me,” my big hit (double duh). I’m sorry, but that song is, like, perfect. It’s really catchy and it’s got this ginormous chorus that never gets old. It goes: “Oooooooh, it seems like I can finally rest my head on something real/I like the way that feels.”
Pretty simple, right? But audiences LOVE it. The crowd in Gwinnett totally went bonkers and was screaming the lyrics so loud that I could hardly hear myself sing.
At that moment, I forgot about all the bad things that’ve happened to me, and I just totally got lost in the moment. No matter what, I know that I’ve created at least one killer pop song. For the rest of my life, no one can take that away from me. I like the way that feels.
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