Sunday, August 17, 2008
A+E, In this Issue..., Theater
The Spotlight Awards
SP's annual roundup of the very best of local theater
Our critic’s top 10 pet peeves
Photo by Lisa Adler
Veronica Redd and Taurean Blacque in Horizon’s “Hallelujah Street Blues”Don’t get me started
By Bert Osborne
10. Crystal Dickinson and Jeff Feldman have moved away, but what excuse is there to go a whole season without glimpsing any of these other former "Spotlight" honorees: Claire Christie, Chris Ekholm, David Milford, Theroun Patterson, Joan Pringle, Nick Tecosky, Geoffrey Williams or LaParee Young?
9. That several locally written new plays weren’t better: Steve Yockey’s "Octopus"; John Ammerman’s "Slapping Bernard"; Valetta Anderson’s "Hallelujah Street Blues"; Letitia Sweitzer’s "West of Eden"; Topher Payne’s "Perfect Arrangement"; Mary Miller’s "Waiting for Oprah"; Stephen Peace’s "A Good Hot Dammed!"
8. The Shakespeare Tavern’s "A Little Night Music." OK, so it doesn’t actually open until next summer, but it’s coming pre-cast with Heidi Cline and Jeff McKerley. (Don’t get me started on their tag-team careers, because this really isn’t about them.) I’m not the biggest musicals guy, but Stephen Sondheim’s show happens to be my favorite. I’ve waited an entire career to see it staged on a professional scale—though McKerley directed a fine Neighborhood Playhouse version in the early ’90s—and, rightly or wrongly, I’ve always fixated on the notion of Megan McFarland playing Desiree (and singing "Send in the Clowns"). Cline could be Meryl Streep, and she still wouldn’t be McFarland. Ah, well. Even a critic can dream … on.
7. The Tavern’s "Of Mice and Men" (speaking of dubious pre-casting). The only thing that knocked the production out of contention for this year’s "Top 10" list was the fatal mistake of giving a sloppy actor like Drew Reeves an intricate role like George. No matter how many years of service he’s dedicated to the group (as company manager), that didn’t make him a reasonable choice. What’s more important, anyway, casting to benefit the show or to satisfy the ego?
6. Number of nude actors on stage this year: 16. Number of nude actresses: 0.
5. Too many unworthy standing ovations to count. On occasion they are completely deserved, but when practically everything gets one these days, what’s so special about them? (This season’s two most special: an "As You Like It" presentation to actor Brad Sherrill for his 20 summers with Georgia Shakespeare; and outgoing Jewish Theatre of the South artistic director Mira Hirsch’s final opening-night curtain speech at "The Last Schwartz.")
4. That I never had the chance to meet legendary Atlanta theater devotee Gene-Gabriel Moore, who founded the Suzi Awards (among other achievments), before he passed away last month.
3. The closing of JTS, and by association . . .
2. The opening of its reconfigured Center Theatre. Talk about going from one extreme to the other. What a difference two months can make—from the sublime "Schwartz" (in May) to the jaw-dropping "Jewtopia" (in July). Hirsch, who founded the troupe in 1995 through the Marcus Jewish Community Center, parted company over creative and commercial differences. This year alone, some of her programming was a hard sell ("Hard Love"), and not all of it was very good ("Comparing Books"). But "Jewtopia"? "25 Questions for a Jewish Mother," a one-woman stand-up act, imported from New York? Center’s mainstream first season will also include "High School Musical," "Brighton Beach Memoirs" and "The Sound of Music." (Bonus points for slotting the latter in December, against the usual glut of Christmas shows.) Lord help us if Neil Simon is artistic director Blake Hall’s idea of serious drama.
1. That I’m not getting any younger. Taking in 111 shows this season took a lot out of me! Many of them were worth it—the 40 or 50 mentioned in some positive light in these articles—but what does that say about my need to have seen all 60 or 70 of the others? Frankly, I could get by with just 52 per year (one for each weekly edition of the paper). Would anybody notice—or care?