Offscript - Unsolved mystery

What the audience wants, and what it doesn’t



Some mysteries never find satisfying answers. Was there another gunman on the grassy knoll? What happened to the lost continent of Atlantis? What does the Atlanta theater audience want? Two recent evenings of theater raised the question, while a third event holds out a depressing solution.

On Thursday, March 25, I went to see Theatre Gael’s Lovers by Brian Friel, only to find that I was the only person in the audience. A young couple soon joined me, but that was it, so Theatre Gael canceled the evening’s performance. When the actors outnumber the audience (Lovers has four cast members), it’s time to pull the plug. The couple were Georgia State students who griped that they’d come to the play to fulfill a class requirement.

Lovers suffered from an unlucky night. The warm weather, basketball playoffs and plethora of other good plays offered stiff competition, and that vague, bland title — Lovers — probably didn’t help. But it’s a sad state when a reliable, 20-year-old theater company produces a play by Ireland’s most acclaimed living playwright, and it only attracts two students and one critic — people attending at least partially out of obligation.

The opening night of Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train at Theatre in the Square’s Alley Stage saw better attendance but featured a strange footnote. I happened to sit on the same row as a middle-aged fellow who asked around for theater management. When he realized that the playhouse’s literary manager and Jesus director Jessica Phelps West was sitting behind us, he promptly told her that Theatre in the Square should stage different kinds of plays. He said the theater’s shows have too much conflict. He doesn’t like shows with men and women arguing in them — he gets too much of that at his day job. He just wants to be entertained, he said, adding that he likes classic drama, you know, like murder mysteries.

He couldn’t have picked a more inappropriate show than Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train, a provocative prison drama that echoes the line “Shut the fuck up!” at least a dozen times in the first three minutes. Weirdly, he sat through the entire play, although he didn’t clap at the end. Why he stayed, and why he even attended a show without first determining its content, defies rational explanation. But Mr. No-Conflict serves as a spokesman for that potential theater audience that resists anything but the most tame, unchallenging escapism, and who blames the playhouse after seeing a production not to his taste.

So what can we assume Atlantans would like? Well, nobody dislikes The Producers. Mel Brooks’ musical version of the 1968 movie averages more than a million dollars a week in ticket sales on Broadway, and the touring version plays at the Fox Theatre through April 18.

I suspect that The Producers succeeds not so much by exceeding expectations but by meeting them so completely. It seamlessly puts old-fashioned razzle-dazzle into the original film’s clever premise about a flop show that becomes a surprise smash. And being a musical about Broadway itself makes it the ideal destination for New York tourists — it reinforces the experience of seeing a show.

When audiences don’t know what they’re seeing, like the guy at Jesus, or when they ignore a play as promising as Lovers, they send a gloomy message. Only the most familiar “brand-name” kinds of shows like The Producers is fit for a risk-averse audience base. There’s a better audience out there, eager and open-minded, but finding it sometimes is no easier than locating the Loch Ness Monster.

All-Nighter

In The 24-Hour Plays, a group of theater artists write, rehearse and stage an evening of original short plays in a single 24-hour period. Horizon Theatre has picked up The 24-Hour Plays concept, first produced by Plain Sight Productions and Synchronicity Performance Group, and will offer “themed” versions of the shows.

The April 18 installment, called “Uprising,” restricts the participating writers, directors and actors to people under the age of 30. Plays such as Out of Hand Theater’s 30 Below featured similar restrictions, but “Uprising” has kicked up a minor controversy on the local online theater chat group Atlanta Theater Mailing List, as participants accused Horizon of discrimination.

“Uprising’s” critics may be mollified by the June 5 installment, “Generations,” which will pair young novices with seasoned professionals for the show’s writing and directing teams. Since The 24-Hour Plays commands more interest as a caffeine-fueled stunt than an evening of timeless drama, making it even more gimmicky seems perfectly consistent.

curt.holman@creativeloafing.com


Off Script is a biweekly column on the Atlanta theater scene.