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About MARIAL MARIAL in the News CRITIC'S
NOTEBOOK: Reflections on season of highs and lows And then there's reality. Like most Americans, I discovered how narrow my vision had gotten on Sept. 11. As the World Trade Center crumbled on the television in front of me, I was hurrying to finish a review (the show was "The Laramie Project" at Actor's Express). I fidgeted in my chair, and the universe shifted, too. That the Atlanta theater community, already such a fragile and complicated beast, has not only survived --- but continued to produce work of exceedingly high quality --- has been a remarkable story to witness. My first season as this newspaper's theater critic has been a dangerous, exhilarating, funny, surprising, maddening and infinitely rewarding journey. After seeing nearly 100 shows around the country over the past year, I am convinced more than ever that the great untold story of the arts in Atlanta is happening onstage. And I am not alone. With about 100 producing theater companies in the greater metro area, our drama scene is much more than a blip on the national radar screen. "You kind of get the feeling outside the city that the Atlanta theater scene is right on the edge of something, that it could have the kind of flowering that they had in Chicago," says Jon Jory, founder of the Humana Festival of New American Plays and former artistic director of Actors Theatre of Louisville, Ky., who was in town earlier this year to stage "The Game of Love and Chance" at the Alliance Theatre. "But you have to wonder what it will take to ignite that." That's a question that local theater producers and patrons must ask themselves. For now, let's celebrate the best shows and performances of the 2001-02 season --- and mourn the losses, which have diminished us all. > Susan V. Booth and the Alliance Theatre. Under the reins of new Artistic Director Booth and Managing Director Tom Pechar, the South's largest theater company seems destined for greatness. Though Booth inherited a season designed by predecessor Kenny Leon, she has produced a series of top-notch productions, including the dazzling "Proof" (which she directed), the forgotten Tennessee Williams comedy "A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur" (staged by Associate Artistic Director Kent Gash) and Jory's "The Game of Love and Chance," the most stylish and elegantly designed show of the season. If the Alliance can bale itself out of its $1.5 million debt, its artistic stature will only get better. Now, how much longer until it wins a regional Tony Award? > Wier Harman and Actor's Express. According to the Actor's Express board, if the second show of the season, Stephen Sondheim's "Company," had not been a success, the adventurous troupe founded by Chris Coleman in 1988 would have gone under. That would have been a tragedy. That Actor's Express has turned a corner and will close its season with a balanced budget is a tribute to its string of lustrous shows. From Alva Rogers' "The Doll Plays" to Glen Berger's "The Wooden Breeks," you can't pick up an American Theatre magazine without seeing an article about the Express. This is where you go to see some of the city's most intellectually vigorous, and visually stunning, work. > Vincent Murphy and Theater Emory. First Murphy organized the Naomi Wallace Festival last fall; then he partnered with the Emory Center for Myth and Ritual in American Life to produce "Staging the American Family: A Symposium on the Evolution of the Idea of Family in 20th-Century Drama.” Along with a superb production of Eugene O'Neill's "Ah, Wilderness!" the project included an evening of scenes from some of the 20th century's best plays, from Lorraine Hansberry's "A Raisin in the Sun" to Paula Vogel's "How I Learned to Drive." It was a brilliant idea and one of the most stimulating nights I spent in the theater all year. Atlanta theater wouldn't be where it is without Murphy, its No. 1 gadfly. > A new space for Theatrical Outfit. Thanks to Bill and Peg Balzer's $1.4 million gift, Tom Key's troupe will get a new home in the former Herren's restaurant building downtown. The opening is scheduled for the 2003-04 season. The Balzers' generosity sets a sterling example; Atlanta theater needs more such patrons. > 7 Stages. Del Hamilton and Faye Allen produced the most important Atlanta premiere of the new century, Robert Earl Price's "Hush: Composing Blind Tom Wiggins," about the 19th-century slave and piano prodigy. And Ping Chong's "Undesirable Elements," an oral-history drama by five young Atlanta immigrants, was the sort of storytelling project that the city needs more of. > Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre Company. When the former Alliance Theatre artistic chief decided to stay here and start a new company, Atlanta lucked out. The guy is a major talent. Bring it on, Kenny. > Out of Hand Theatre Company. Ariel de Mann's
direction of Jean Cocteau's "Les Parents LOSSES > New Jomandi Productions. The cancellation of Suzan-Lori Parks' "In the Blood" just weeks after the playwright became the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama was a major disappointment. And too bad the company couldn't find the resources to lure Andrea Frye as artistic director. Frye's national directing and acting career is safe (she's the first African-American to play Martha in Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?", now running at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival), but Jomandi's future is in jeopardy. > Atlanta Lyric Theatre. After two worthwhile productions ("Hello, Dolly!" and "H.M.S. Pinafore"), the city's only regular producer of musical theater had to cancel "Camelot," its third and final show of the season. The Lyric deserves better. > Soul-stice Repertory Ensemble. After eight seasons, this actor-driven company is going on hiatus for a year to focus on fund-raising and development. It might also consider the wisdom of packing four shows into a six-week time frame --- unless there's a clearly articulated theme or overarching idea, I don't get it. It's simply too much to chew on at once. > The person behind the patois. Atlanta is losing
its accent --- and one of its most respected theater professionals.
Elisa Lloyd Carlson, the voice and dialect coach who has taught
actors all over town how to sound like everything from Britons to
Brooklyners, is leaving to become resident voice and text director
at Minneapolis' prestigious Guthrie Theatre. It's a shame. "I've
worked in many other cities across the country, and never have I
seen an arts community so starved for financial support as I see
here," says Carlson in a farewell e-mail. THE SHORT LIST < More MARIAL in the News |