Saturday, September 29, 2007
A+E, Theater, Reviews
Light from darkness
Compelling one-woman drama draws on real life
Courtney Patterson in “My Name is Rachel Corrie”
CREDIT: Nicole Goodness |
“MY NAME IS RACHEL CORRIE”
Through Sunday, Oct. 7
Synchronicity Performance Group
At 7 Stages Theatre
$15–$20
404-484-8636 |
“DARK PLAY OR STORIES FOR BOYS”
Through Saturday, Oct. 6
Actor’s Express
$22–$27
www.actors-express.com
404-607-7469 |
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DULY NOTED:
Neil Simon’s fairly routine comedy-drama “Broadway Bound” receives an uneven treatment from Robert Egizio, the artistic director of the Stage Door Players. The comedy is more agreeably handled (by David Chromiak and Bobby Labartino as two brothers) than is the drama (by Josie Burgin Lawson and David Skoke as their parents). A plus: The show boasts another fabulous set by resident designer Chuck Welcome. Through Oct. 14 at the North DeKalb Cultural Arts Center. Tickets are $24. 770-396-1726. www.stagedoorplayers.net.
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By Bert Osborne
Just as the real Rachel Corrie’s life ended so tragically early, so does Courtney Patterson’s wondrous performance in Synchronicity Performance Group’s one-woman drama “My Name is Rachel Corrie.” The play (edited by Alan Rickman and Katharine Viner) is taken entirely from the actual writings of Corrie, an idealistic American who was only 23 when she was killed while protecting a Palestinian home in the Gaza Strip from an oncoming Israeli bulldozer in 2003.
How her nomadic soul found its way from the meaningless details and smaller scale of a quiet life in Olympia, Wash., to embracing global justice issues and nonviolent resistance in the war-torn Middle East makes for a compelling 90 minutes of theater, under the guidance of Synchronicity artistic director Rachel May. As Corrie is packing up for the trip and moving out of her apartment, Patterson gradually dismantles the walls and drapery of Lisa Johnson’s set to reveal a startling change of scene, the shell-shocked stone and cement rubble of Palestine.
Some of the character transitions in the play are potentially jarring, too, and the true measure of Patterson’s work here is how seamlessly she navigates between them—when in one breath she might be reliving the horrifying events of Sept. 11, and in the next, regaling us with an amusing Dairy Queen anecdote. As Corrie comes to question her “fundamental belief in the goodness of human nature,” Patterson commands not only our mindful attention, but also our heartfelt sympathy for the duration of an incredibly challenging extended monologue.
That’s why, after 88 minutes or so in such remarkable company, the show’s last couple of minutes seem like a cop-out. Whether as scripted or as directed, at the fateful moment of truth, Patterson opens a laptop and exits the stage, leaving us to hear about the specifics of Corrie’s death from the prerecorded voice of an anonymous man, and to see a video clip of the real Rachel Corrie as a conscientious little girl. It feels manipulative in a way that Patterson’s performance never does.
Would that the characters in Carlos Murillo’s “Dark Play Or Stories for Boys” even bothered to open a laptop. The play is largely set in the technological netherworld of Internet chat rooms, although you hardly sense it in artistic director Freddie Ashley’s Actor’s Express staging. Aside from a momentary webcam simulation or two, there’s nothing about the stylistic design of the show to complement any thematic notion of computers as a big, bad corrupting influence on youth.
The play is a sordid sexual drama about a greasy gay geek who creates a fictional (female) online identity for himself in order to lure another teenage boy into bed, with drastic consequences. Much of the play’s dialogue is built around a myriad of e-mails and instant messages, with the actors simply standing there reciting them, either to the audience or to the backs of each other’s heads. When the two main characters finally come face to face, they are no more effectively fleshed out.
Jimi Kocina plays the creep, and the fact that he’s telling his story in flashback to a girlfriend raises certain sexual-identity questions the play never answers. Brent Rose fares better as the dupe, despite some of his character’s own ill-defined actions. SP