Southern Bookman

Atlanta Theater Feels the Cold

As a lapsed Atlanta drama critic, I have theater envy reading the rave reviews and glowing articles about "The Iceman Cometh" revival at Chicago's Goodman Theater. Yes, Atlanta's Alliance won a regional Tony a couple of years ago, but Atlanta's premier theater is off-course seeking to develop Broadway-kitsch musical monstrosities such as the recent disaster, "Ghost Brothers of Darkland County."

The Goodman's "Iceman," with the possibly miscast Nathan Lane in the role of Hickey, is the kind of innovative revival that Atlanta audiences rarely if ever get to see. A couple of years ago, the Alliance did put on a good performance of "August: Osage County," and Georgia Shakespeare and the New American Shakespeare Tavern from time to time leave the Bard's work to do a revival, such as the outstanding "Glass Menagerie" a few years ago at the Tavern.

With the demise of Marietta's Theater on the Square and recent financial troubles at other venues, Atlanta theater has declined. The Alliance's announced new season doesnt hold much of interest for me. Chicago's "Iceman Cometh" shows the chill in Atlanta theater.

Thoughts of Rothko on a Rainy Night

As I left the Theatrical Outfit's performance of "Red," in downtown Atlanta, a light rain fell. The play, full of art talk and aesthetic musings, left me in a sombre mood. The longtime Atlanta theater master Tom Key truly made himself into the haunted Rothko, showing a man covering an acute sensitivity with an art-cumedgeon persona, and young Jimi Kocina as his helper and dramatic foil was excellent. 

Once again, I decided against driving home on the interstate and took the local route from Spring to Peachtree. I always like going down Peachtree, imagining it a grand boulevard like say Park Avenue, although Peachtree, along with so much else in Atlanta, is quite mediocre. Still, artistic efforts like Tom's Theatrical Outfit in a once dying part of downtown kindle a hopes for the city, whose lustre has dimmed in recent years. 

Thoughts of Rothko and his ruminations on the truth of art/seeing/color/vision vs. commerce/popularity'vulgarity had me thinking about my own life, and others. The New York Times had run three obituaries on three great women who had lived well with full artistic accomplishment: Dorothea Tanning, Wislawa Szymborska and Camilla Williams.

Heading home, I passed the Memorial Arts Center, where once I'd seen some Rothkos at the High Museum. A few other signs of attempts at urban greatness passed by, along with a stretch of strip shopping centers and the like. They have their own truth too, though.

I pass places where I've lived segments of my life, in weekly repeated rituals: Barnes & Noble (alas, Borders gone), Peachtree Pres (where I fitfully go to the gym, and where my children played basketball and went to preschool and where Tom Key annually narrates a Christmas Eve service for kids), and the pond on Lakemoore. I also pass Christ the King, where my wife and I were married, and where I first met Tom at a Sunday morning adult education series. Years of images and memories built up.

The rain grows heavier, and already some parts of Roswell Road are flooded. Again, I'm thankful to make it home.

Ken Kesey's "Magic Trip"

In one of those serendipitous discoveries, I found that Comcast's On-Demand is showing a documentary on Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters' psychedelic trip across the United States in a painted bus called "Further." Although the hour was late and sleep called, I had to immediately watch "Magic Trip," the History Channel-funded film.

The film, pieced together from movies taken by Kesey and crew on the trip (the initial motive for the journey was to make a film), was exhilarating and hilarious, although the antics of the proto-hippies now seem ill-conceived, jejune and wasteful.

How wonderful and relevatory to see characters in "living color" I'd only read about previously. Kesey with his physical power and charisma, bursts from the screen. Neal Cassidy, the hero of Jack Kerouac's "On the Road," also shows his legendary physical dynamism and electric non-stop raps. Although he was constantly on speed, driving through the night and talking even when no one is listening except for the microphone, Cassidy despite his love of nutty,unexpected adventures comes off as an adult, knowing how to change tires and get out of frequent scrapes with the highway patrol. Cameo appearances are made by an amusingly proper Larry McMurtry,  perplexed when his old Stanford chum Kesey and the Pranksters show up at his home in a rarified Houston neighborhood, a sadly diminished Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. A young and beardless Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead play a significant role in the film's look at the famed Kesey acid tests, the subject of a book by Tom Wolfe (not even mentioned).

The less famous members of the crew come off as silly, confused, bewildered, infantile and mentally derangedl. I felt something like pity for them, along with the sick fascination of watching impaired people acting out their delusions. One or two of them show intelligence in commenting upon the experience. Others are just children trapped in Kesey's artistic and social experiment.

Frequent LSD trips mark the cross-country journey. Kesey is an early LSD apostle, although the film shows Timothy Leary and Ram Dass shunning the group when it shows up at Kesey's LSD experimental station in New York. Kesey first took acid as part of a government-funded experiment at Stanford. The experiment is shown is excruciating detail, with Kesey recording his observations in a tape recorder, then in an interview with a nurse who may be a Nurse Ratched prototype. Kesey's psychedelic visions sound pretty much like any other acid trip, showing how mundane and unordinary the so-called "revelations" really were.

Like other "happenings" and political street theater projects of the time, the trip of Further doesn't hold up aethetically. Most of the crews' antics while on acid don't appear very imaginative and innovative. Yet, the film, with its comments from Kesey and Cassidy and its constant attempt to show the context of the times, still possesses great charm and energy. As with Andy Warhol's similar aesthetic experiments with a crew of acolytes, Kesey's experiment looks like a grand failure. At the end, he turned against the counter-culture folks who kept showing up at his Oregon farm, and the widespread use of acid, although he kept maintaining the value of its use for select visionaries such as himself.

Kesey says to an unnamed interviewer who sounds like "Fresh Air's" Terry Gross that he kept writing to the end. Yet, at least in posthumous works that have been published so far, he never reached the heights of his earlier works, the classic "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," and "Sometimes a Great Notion." Kesey wasted much creative energy in the Magic Trip. While the film is amusing, I wish we would have had instead later, artistically mature, books from Kesey.

By the way, I was glad to hear Kesey say he didn't like the movie made from "Cuckoo's Nest," although he liked the Broadway play (Kirk Douglas played Randall McMurphy.) Kesey thought the movie, starring Jack Nicholson, focused too much on the conflict between McMurphy and the Big Nurse. On reviewing the movie several years ago, I hated the misogynistic portrayal of Ratched, although Louise Fletcher won an Academy Award for her performance.

....Note: Terry Daughtery, interviewed by Southern Bookman after his fine biography on Donald Bartheleme, will have a biography out this month on "Catch 22" writer Joseph Heller. A riveting excerpt is in this month's Vanity Fair. 

Shakespeare Troupe Moving to Fort Greene

The New York Times had an interesting story Saturday morning about the Theater for a New Audience Shakespearian theater moving from Manhattan to Fort Greene in Brooklyn, where the city is funding a new $47.5 million theater for the company. The move drew criticism from black residents and artists, who say the move catering to, as the Times said, works of a "Dead White Male" playwright. Said Laurie A. Cumbo of the Musem of Contemporary African Diasporan Art, "We have a role and respnsibility to act as a community so that these institutions that we're building first and foremost benefits the people who live" here. Then we can think about the hipsters, the yuppies, the Manhattanites and that sort of thing."

I can see the need for the city to fund works of emerging black playwrights, along with works from other groups. Artistic merit, not ethnicity, should be the standard. However, while Shakespeare the man might be white and dead, his plays have remained alive for more than 400 years, and speak to all of us. The belief that Shakespeare doesn't relate to black audiences shortchanges them. The article says the Theater for a New Audience does three plays a year; surely other companies and artistic genres can use the theater some of the time. It would be a good gesture for the theater to open itself to contemporary plays, including those of black writers and performers.

The building of the theater recalled to me that Shakespeare's own company built the Globe Theater in London. What does it say about our time that in the Elizabethan era, a theatrical troupe could afford its own stage, not depending on the queen to fund it. Of course, today the theater must compete with much more entertainment offerings. The wealth of "The King's Men" can only be duplicated in mega performances on Broadway, which also continues to struggle along with symphonies, museums, publishers,etc. 

 

 

"August: Osage County" Falls Short of Greatness

The Alliance Theater's production of Tracy Letts' "August: Osage County" engaged me completely. I understood why the play's Broadway production caused a sensation, with critics and audience members extolling it as a new great American play. Yet, the day after, I had misgivings about whether "August: Osaage County" could be compared with "A Streetcar Named Desire" or "An Iceman Cometh."

In retrospect, the play's sensational elements of incest, drug addiction, alcoholism, etc. seemed overwrought and gratuitous. Despite a number of strong scenes, the play's language often sounded ordinary, cliched. The character's words didn't reach those higher levels of poetry associated with the greatest theater. The torments and demons failed to rise into the realms of the highest tragedy. 

Perhaps time, and newer productions will prove me wrong. The Alliance production was an afterrnoon of fine theater, but after I day of reflection, I found myself unconvinced that the play could stand among the greatest works of the theater.

''Gatz" Gives Dramatic Life to "The Great Gatsby"

F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" at last finds dramatic success with the Elevator Repair Service's production of "Gatz" in New York City. In the play, a night watchman begins reading Fitzgerald's novel and its characters arise in his presence. This conceit has achieved success after the failures of a couple of movie versions of "Gatsby."

The movies, including the high-priced bomb starring Robert Redford as Gatsby and Mia Farrow as Daisy Buchanan, were faithful to Fitzgerald's dialogue, so ebullient on the page, leaden on actors' lips. Funny, in his stints in Hollywood, Fitzgerald showed an inability to write good screen dialogue. His ear for language fell flat. Trying to duplicate the book on the screen was bound to fail.

Now, "Gatz" works by having characters read the book on stage. Perhaps the theater was always the right dramatic genre for the book. The play examines the experience of reading, how characters live in our imaginations as we create them for ourselves from the words we read.

"Gatsby" is one of those books I used to re-read, although I haven't in a while. I fear I'll find it falling short if I read it again. The language, characterization and musings on American desire, ambition and greed are certainly great, but I wondered if they would retain their old power. Since most American classics are encountered in youth, are they really immature, facile works, unable to stand with works by Shakespeare, Proust or others? "Gatz" makes me want to return to "Gatsby," reassuring me that Fitzgerald's magic will last. 

 

More Ruminations on "King Lear"

Watching a live production of "King Lear," which I also wrote about in yesterday's post, set me off on a frenzy of reading about the play and Shakespeare in general.

One interesting fact stood out: Cordelia doesn't die in versions of King Lear, spelled "Leir," before Shakespeare. Her death is a stunning example of Shakespeare's genius, obviously immensely raising the tragic stakes. While Cordelia's death is an overwhelming dramatic conception, I also wondered if polticial realities of the time influenced Shakespeare's decision. Several commentaries pointed out that the play was written soon after King James I united the kingdoms of England and Scotland, and one of the themes of the play is the benefits of a unified kingdom. In the play, Cordelia is the queen of France and leads an army that invades England, so she could be seen as a traitor her selft, disrupting political unity. Lear also curiously turns against the country he had previously led, joining with the French forces. So, their deaths are justified by the laws of tragedy; they both take actions against the right balance of things.

However, this raises another conflict. In the predominant version of the play, Edgar makes the final speech and becomes the king of England. Yet he earlier appeared allied with the French forces, or at least with Lear. Wouldn't he like Cordelia and Lear be considered as a disturber of the established order, making him unable to rule England? One version of the play has the slowly redeemed Duke of Albany (Scotland) become the king, which would be more logical.

All of this is quite muddled in the play. The production I saw, at Ga. Shakespeare, made it even more confusing by apparently cutting an explanation of why the King of France is absent from the battle, leaving it to Cordelia and the previously muddled king to lead the French forces.

One  of the production's interpretations that I found jarring was presenting Cordelia as a kind of Joan of Arc in drag, weaing a mannish khaki uniform with trousers and boots. Another interesting reading was, after her death, having Lear carry her in over his shoulder, like a sack of potatoes. He also comes from the aisle in the audience. My impression from other productions is that Lear usually carries Cordelia in his arms, Pieta style, and comes from behind the stage. I thought this conception effective, since it makes logical sense that Lear would have cut down the hanging Cordelia and had her fall across his shoulder.

In reading about the play, I consulted the huge commentaries by Yale dynamo Harold Bloom and Harvard's Marjorie Garber. Bloom's is "The Invention of the Human," and Garber's "Shakespeare After All."  Both write in an arching, academic, lit-crit style. I usually lie Garber's commentaries on Shakespeare's plays, but her piece on Lear flung mightly toward big generalizations that rarely hit the mark.

Garber makes insightful comments about how much Shakespeare depends on Christian symbolism and references in "Lear."  With such bleak moments as Cordelia's death and the blinding of Gloucester, the play is often considered nihilistic, the origin of existentialism's belief in the meaninglessness of life. Garber makes a strong case that the play expresses Christian values of love.

Garber takes a more balanced view of Shakespeare than the flamboyant Bloom, who grandly sees Shakespeare as the inventor of our modern consciousness, "the invention of the human. " Shakespeare is surely a great writer, and uncannily anticipates our moral and intellectual perplexities, yet Bloom overstates his case. Along with his giddy assertions, wild, pontificating statements and amusing condemnations of the "school of resentment" and feminist views of Shakespeare (perhaps targering Garber), Bloom displays a deep understanding of Shakespeare's plays, especially how he uses language.

In my burst of research, I rediscovered the most entertaining book on Shakespeare, W.H. Auden's "Lectures on Shakespeare." The book consists of a student's recollections and notes from a serious of lectures Auden made on Shakespeare's plays and sonnents for a course at the New School in New York.

Highly opinionated, Auden approaches Shakespeare with a refreshing lack of reverencee, seeing him as a working writer with faults and strengths and who slowly, painstakingly developed his craft. Himself a considerable literary genius, Auden brings a working poet's perspective to his writing, more practical and grounded than the high-flying critical academic viewpoint of Bloom and Gerber. He also shows a deep knowledge of English history and literature, which Gerber and Bloom also have. Auden, though, is not as theoretical and abstract.

Finally, I consulted the Royal Shakespeare Company's edition of Shakespeare's "Collected Works" and gained a few more insights, more from the point of view of producing the play. The type was quite small for my now aching eyes.

The Marvel of "King Lear"

Georgia Shakespeare's production of "King Lear" left me in wonder at the imagination that could write such an audacious work. The production was fine, although it left me agreeing with Harold Bloom's observation that the work is greater on the page than in any stage variation.

The production gave its highest value from the essential component of the play: the scenes of Lear's descent into madness, battling the storm, and the wandering of Edgar and the blind Gloucester. The scene of Edgar tricking Gloucester into believing he's leaping to his death from the White Cliffs of Dover is for me the height of Shakespeare's art, and the production achieved the full dramatic power from it. The military aspect of the invasion of France remained murky, and I found distracitng the conceit of giving the battles modern touches such as the sounds of airplanes, bombs, and missiles.

The speeches of Lear, the lines of the Fool, the reconciliation betweeen Lear and Cordelia and Edgar and Gloucester are what make the play great, although none of this could exist without the machinations of Edmund, Goneril and Regan. The subplot of the invasion of the French armies are tedious, but again, the great moments depend upon them. 

The play remains an enigma. How audacious what Shakespeare asks us to accept, such as the Lear's decsion to divide the land among his daughters. Why is Cordelia's refusal to express her love so believable, why do we accept it?  The scenes in the wild, the storm, the deaths of Cordelia, Lear and Gloucester are like a dream that we somehow believe as real. Shakespeare reaches the limit of his art, pushes his language to the ultimate degree, yet the statements epxress the basic truths of existence.

Watching a production of the play puts it in a different dimension. I'd seen a version at Emory University which was fine, and a TV production starring Ian Holm. This production adds to my conception of the play, although I'd love to see one in tradtional dress. King Lear will remain most alive for me on the page.

August Wilson's "Jitney" Rumbles at the Alliance

At about the time as I'd watched Denzel Washington bound on stage in "Fences" in New York City the Saturday before, I saw the start of "Jitney" at Atlanta's Alliance Theater. Two August Wilson plays on two straight Saturday matinees, one directed by Kenny Leon and the other performed by Leon's True Colors Theatre Co., made for an exciting journey to Wilson territory, Pittsburgh's Hill neighborhood.

An earlier play, "Jitney" falls short of the poetry and artistic mastery of "Fences," although themes correspond. "Jitney's" multiple characters and storylines bring a frenzied, helter-skelter quality, giving the impression of a collection of sketches and vignettes not quite cohering into a complete play. Wilson had not yet acquired the masterly control over his material displayed in "Fences." Seeing the two plays so close together strikingly shows Wilson's growth as a writer.

"Jitney" remains a strong and vital play. The mostly male characters, drivers for a Pittsburgh car service threatened with closure, are memorable and evocative. Through their often racy and belligerent talk, Wilson searchingly looks at the humor, endurance, shame, fears, hopes, dreams and self-destructive turns torward violence of black men. As with his more accomplished plays, Wilson in "Jitney" achieves universal appeal.

The play take place in the 1970s, several  years after the decade depicted in "Fences." I experienced a brief stab of grief when a character in "Jitney" makes a passing reference to the terminal cancer of Jim Bono, a key character in "Fences," strongly played by Stephen McKinley Henderson in the current Broadway production at the Cort Theater. Several other references built the historic continuity of Wilson's vision.

 "Jitney" reflects the broader opportunities for blacks, along with the destruction of older ways of life from urban gentrification and social changes. Cedric Young fully explores the dignity, disappointment and moral strength of Becker, the boss of the car service and "Jitney's" central character.  

The most entertaining performance in "Jitney" is carried out by longtime Wilson interpreter Anthony Chisholm as the funny, wise, bigger-than-life alcoholic Fielding. With his sometimes hard to decipher raspy voice, oddly graceful drunkard's walk and moments of compassion and pathos, Chisholm gives a masterly acting exhibition.

As with Shakespeare's early plays, "Jitney" shows a playwright of genius just discovering how to use his power. The True Colors performance, which continues at the  Alliance Theater through June 27 after an initial run at the Southwest Arts Center, fulfills the magic of a budding theatrical master.

 

Kenny Leon: "I Encouraged (Denzel Washington and Viola Davis) to Go Deeper Into Play"

Kenny Leon's Broadway revival of August Wilson's "Fences" has drawn overwhelming audience support, critical acclaim and awards recognition. Nominated for a best director Tony award for the show, Leon in directing a stellar cast led by Denzel Washington and Viola Davis shows deep understanding of Wilson's language and characters. The production leaves no doubt that he is the foremost interpreter of Wilson's work. The receipient of 10 Tony award nominations, including best actor and actress for Washingon and Davis, the play continues for several weeks at the Cort Theater on West 48th Street in Manhattan.

Previously in charge of Atlanta's Alliance Theater, Leon splits his time as a director in New York with life in Atlanta as head of the True Colors Theatre Co. From a core interest on plays exploring the black experience, True Colors reaches toward a broader audience. The company's production of Wilson's "Jitney," directed by Derrick Sanders, moves to the Alliance Theater Saturday, June 5.

En route to New York from Atlanta to do some pre-Tony Awards appearances, Leon paused to give a brief interview to Southern Bookman.

 

1. Are you at all surprised at the success of “Fences?" That such a serious, traditional play has achieved such popularity on Broadway must be gratifying.

I’m not surprised. It’s a very American play that has a great balance of humor and drama. I pulled all the humor out of it that I could. I’m very proud of it, proud to have such a wonderful cast. August Wilson would be proud of what’s on the stage.

 

2. You have a special affinity for August Wilson’s work. The “Fences” revival reflects his stature as a major American playwright. What do you find significant in his work?              He writes historical plays but doesn’t write history.  He writes about specific decades, but they have universal impact. His genius was to focus on the specific but give it universal appeal and reach for all.

3. In a recent interview, you expressed satisfaction that the revival of “Fences” that you directed has the most diverse audience on Broadway. When I saw the play, I was also struck by the diversity of the audience. Why does the play have such a broad appeal? Just about everybody has a family. Sometimes it may not be a traditional family. But every one has some sort of family, some sort of brother or friend, who may be facing challenges. All of us have parents. Any American alive with a beating heart should be able to open a door to visit that play.

4. Denzel Washington and Viola Davis’ performances (along with those of the the rest of the cast) were wonderful.  How as a director did you help build such chemistry between them, especially since they didn’t know each other well previously?    They had worked together on “Antwone Fisher,” the film. But this was a new thing for them. Their approach to the theater is very honest and very real. With them in this place, it was very easy for me navigate their performances. In rehearsal, I encouraged them to go deeper into the play. Denzel’s approach is very honest and truthful, and Viola has the same approach.

5. Your True Colors Theatre takes its production of Wilson’s “Jitney” to Atlanta’s Alliance Theater on Saturday, June 5.  Do you see the production, directed by Derrick Sanders, as complementing “Fences”? Are their any similarities between the plays?      All of his plays come from same gene pool, but “Jitney” is definitely different from “Fences.” “Jitney” is his funniest play. It’s very different from “Fences,” but both are concerned with a father-and-son relationship. Both end when the father is dead, and the son has to decide how to move forward. But they are different plays.

6. What’s coming up for you in the future, at True Colors and nationally?      I hope to continue developing a wider audience for True Colors. I hope to continue tying my work in New York to the company in Atlanta. I hope to carry the brand of  True Colors to New York. Last week, Samuel L. Jackson was in Atlanta for a reading, along with Jim Pickens of “Grey’s Anatomy.” I want to tie both of those worlds together.