Curtain’s Up

originally published August 13, 2008

The new school year brings with it a new theatre season. The coming months are chock-a-block full of the wide-ranging diversity that the stage can offer: Elizabethan drama, existentialist musings, campy comedy, song-and-dance numbers and even hair-raising scares.

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Wedded Bliss: The season commences with Edward Albee’s biting portrait of the ugly and vicious form of intimacy that can accompany matrimony. University Theatre will host a limited seven-show run of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? this week before the production moves to Atlanta’s 7 Stages in October. UGA faculty members Kristin Kundert-Gibbs and Ray Paolino step into the roles immortalized by Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in the 1966 film adaptation, and 7 Stages’ Del Hamilton directs. The Tony-winning play’s well-known plot - a drunken night of “fun and games” devolves as a middle-aged couple psychologically torment one another and their guests - give the leads a lot to work with. Not only must they navigate quick shifts from comedy to tragedy and from light-hearted quips to cruel barbs, they must always simultaneously play all sides of the multi-layered dialogue (both text and subtext). See what’s sure to be a first-rate acting throwdown Aug. 14-16 & 18-20 at 7:30 p.m. and Aug. 17 at 2:30 p.m. in the Cellar Theatre in the UGA Fine Arts Building. Tickets are only $7 for students/seniors and $10 for everyone else.

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Fun in the Forest: Town and Gown Players have reached a few hundred years further back into the literary canon for their kick-off production. They’ll present Shakespeare’s As You Like It, directed by Dina Canup, at Athens Community Theatre on Aug. 15-16 & 21-23 at 8 p.m. and Aug. 17 & 24 at 2 p.m. The basic ingredients of the play - squabbling siblings, rival families, forest adventures, romantic entanglements - make for a traditionally Shakespearean set-up, but intricate plotting takes a backseat. Although the action never stalls - thanks to the fun with mistaken identities that always accompanies crossdressing escapades - the attention is primarily focused on character development and a general blurring of social boundaries (especially when it comes to gender roles and sexuality). As the central figure, Rosalind is the primary benefactress of the character-driven nature of the comedy. Perhaps Shakespeare’s most appealing heroine, Rosalind combines all of the best attributes of the female characters that populate his plays, without their attendant foibles. She is lovesick like Juliet and Midsummer’s Helena, but she has a self-awareness that prevents her infatuation from ever veering into the territory of tragedy or folly. Like the “shrewish” Katherine, she doesn’t hesitate to stand up for herself or chastise others with her winning wit, but Rosalind’s rebukes are never overly cruel. And because Rosalind dons a mannish disguise, she is free to transgress her prescribed social role and speak authoritatively, in stark contrast to her meek, passive and frail counterparts (e.g., Miranda, Desdemona, Ophelia). Amy Dowd will take on the complex emotions and spirited dialogue of the classic heroine, with Emily Myers as Celia, Rosalind’s BFF, and Martin Smith as Orlando, the object of Rosalind’s affection. Steven Carroll rounds out the cast as the world-weary and cantankerous Jaques, whose claim to fame is the oft-quoted “All the world’s a stage” monologue. Tickets are $18 for regular admission, $15 for students/seniors and $5 for all on Thursday, Aug. 21. Reserve your seat by calling 706-208-8696.

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Coming Soon: A full slate of shows from local companies will be debuting in the not-too-distant future. Up next, Athens Creative Theatre will mount the Rodgers and Hammerstein epic The Sound of Music in late September. University Theatre will be similarly ambitious when they tackle Museum, Tina Howe’s play about contemporary art that features dozens of crisscrossing characters and a plot that moves at a frenetic pace from one group of gallery-goers to the next.

The stage becomes spooky for a short spell in October. Heads will roll during Rose of Athens’ encore presentation of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, a big hit last fall, and UGA will deliver bona fide chills with The Pillowman, a 2003 psychological thriller from Martin McDonagh that doubles as dark comedy and macabre fantasy. Town and Gown will shift the mood to a more lighthearted realm with Ken Ludwig’s farcical romp Moon Over Buffalo and their Second Stage production of Meanwhile, Back at the Super-Lair, a comedy that chronicles the day-to-day tribulations of a league of not-so-super heroes.

Ghosts, though of the friendly and nostalgic variety, will occupy the Morton Theatre the first week of November in UGA’s production of Thornton Wilder’s carpe-diem-themed Our Town. The same month everyone’s favorite red-headed orphan will make a triumphant return to the local stage in Oconee Youth Playhouse’s Annie. Also in November, Athens Creative Theatre will bring classic playbills to life. Snippets of Rent, West Side Story, Godspell and more will be performed as part of the “Live Art” undertaking.

To close out 2008 Town and Gown will present Tom Stoppard’s modern masterpiece Arcadia. The play’s abstruse engagement with chaos theory will leave you with plenty to mull over during the holidays. Even more theatrical entertainment, from Shakespeare (Macbeth, Rose of Athens) to Kander and Ebb (Cabaret, Town and Gown), awaits in the new year.

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The Other Kind of Theatre: Between live theatre productions, you can still find heaps of other forms of cultural edification around town, and the art house cinema is a good place to start. Ciné’s state-of-the-art facilities are host to indies, classics, documentaries and international films on a daily basis, but the theatre and its adjoining lab are also the setting for an assortment of events, from film festivals and discussion panels to live improv shows. Special screenings on tap for the coming weeks include a pair of documentaries that examine the endangered status of the independent record store (I Need That Record on Aug. 15-17 as part of Athens Popfest) and the injustices that undergird the global coffee industry (Black Gold on Aug. 19 as part of a night of 1000faces Coffee, dessert and discussion). Also just around the corner in October is EcoFest, a festival that aims to raise environmental awareness through full-length features, panel discussions, exhibits and a short-film competition. Visit www.athenscine.com for movie listings and a comprehensive run-down of upcoming events.

Jennifer Bryant