The production values clearly leave something to be desired, and not all of the performances are exactly top-notch, but Out Front Theatre founder and producing artistic director Paul Conroy has never been one to shy away from a creative challenge in programming a variety of material for the LGBTQ-centric company.
“When Last We Flew,” a fantastical dramatic comedy by Harrison David Rivers that’s intended as an homage of sorts to Tony Kushner’s landmark epic “Angels in America,” proves to be a rather daunting and arguably unattainable task for Out Front — where, not surprisingly, its biggest box-office hits tend to be campy, crowd-pleasing, critic-proof musicals like “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert,” “The Rocky Horror Show” and “Xanadu.”
Give me an intimate character study like 2020′s “warplay” (a modern-day retelling of the Greek tragedy about Achilles and Patroclus) or 2019′s singularly powerful “Porcelain” (involving the sexual awakening of a young gay Asian American man) any day. Although this current Out Front undertaking, directed by J. L. Reed, never quite matches either of those exemplary efforts, it’s still a real shame that I attended the show’s opening-weekend matinee among an audience of a mere dozen people.
Credit: Courtesy of Out Front Theatre
Credit: Courtesy of Out Front Theatre
At center stage is the only set piece of note in Matthew Dupee’s spare scenic design: the bathroom toilet in a small-town Kansas home, where a high school student named Paul (A. J. Thomson) has sequestered himself. As he puts it to us, “It’s the only room in my house with a lock.” When he isn’t bickering with his exasperated mother (Jasmine Thomas) on the other side of that locked door, or occasionally fantasizing about sex, Paul’s mainly finding personal relevance and inspiration by reading a well-worn library copy of Kushner’s revered masterwork.
There are also periodic cellphone calls from his classmate and closest confidante, Ian (Lu Vijil), one of a few alternating narrators in the play’s supporting cast, who’s openly gay and at a certain point sadly acknowledges to the audience his feelings for Paul by confessing, “The worst thing in the world is to love someone who only sees you as a friend.”
Thomson and Vijil are definitely the weakest links in director Reed’s largely unfamiliar ensemble, while the ever-resourceful Thomas (Theatre du Reve’s “The Little Prince,” Theatrical Outfit’s “Christmas at Pemberley,” Horizon’s “Wolves,” Synchronicity’s “rip”) once again establishes herself to be one of Atlanta’s most consistently qualified talents as Paul’s caring, if put upon, single mother.
More unexpected are the equally superb contributions from the remaining members (and relative unknowns to me) in the acting company. A solid Evan Hill Phillips registers with a couple of affecting moments in flashback scenes as Paul’s absent father, and later as a new classmate at his school. And Dalyla McGee is simply splendid in a number of roles as various teachers, principals and parents, among other character turns.
Credit: Courtesy of Out Front Theatre
Credit: Courtesy of Out Front Theatre
Possibly best of all is the excellent Ebony Jerry as Natalie, a “high-spirited firecracker” who initially discovers a sense of social activism as the token student of color at a Catholic prep school she not-so-affectionately refers to as “cracker high.” Her amusingly awful rendition of the “Black national anthem” at a pep rally observing “MLKJ Day” (in September, no less) eventually leads to her expulsion, after a foul-mouthed outburst in the ostensible interest of “righting a history of wrongs.”
When Natalie crashes through Paul’s bathroom ceiling in one of several dream-like tornado sequences that this generally marginal Out Front production doesn’t have the budget or technical wizardry to fully actualize, Jerry alone — donning wings in a comedic variation of Kushner’s famous prophetical angel — almost pulls it off just the same.
THEATER REVIEW
“When Last We Flew”
Through April 2. 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays; 3 p.m. Sunday (March 27); 8 p.m. Monday (March 28). $15-$25. Out Front Theatre, 999 W. Brady Avenue NW, Atlanta. 404-448-2755. www.outfronttheatre.com.
Bottom line: A far cry from “Angels in America,” but its heart is in the right place.
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