About Flagpole. (Athens, Ga.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 4, 2000)
9t'i> A Sin *7(1 MiU Mockitujbisul T 1 — TA 7Y«| & Gown Players has kicked off its 48th consecutive i. v/ W1 L Mainstage season with an adaptation of Harper Lee's masterpiece To Kill a Mockingbird, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961. Lee's story delves deep into human consciousness, exploring and questioning the reasons that motivate wickedness in the hearts of perfectly normal and good people. Reflecting the deep South town of Maycomb, Alabama in 1935, the rustic set depicts the wood and brick homes of Atticus Finch (Jeff Evans) and his neighbors. Dramatist Christopher Sergei has infused a sense of Hollywood movie-making into the production: an orchestra over ture swells during the opening sequence with Finch's young daughter Scout (Rebecca Burgess) playing alone while outlined in a dark indigo lighting, lacking only a credit sequence to complete the mood. The transitions in the story are provided by Jean Louise Finch (Carla Thaxton)—Scout as a grown-up woman—who descrubes the events leading to the trial which explores the weaknesses of the justice system in a bigoted small town. Helpful at first, her interjec tions seem unnecessary and preachy once the compelling story begins to unfold. When Mayella Ewell (Aubrey Merta) accuses Tom Robinson (Nicholas Bass) of raping her, Atticus Finch risks the backlash of friends and neighbors by defending a black man he knows is inno cent of any crime. Though he is unable to convince the jury of Robinson's innocence, Finch wins the admiration and respect of his children through his ambition to prove to them that "most people are real nice." Evans' Atticus, a complex character himself, teaches his chil dren to respect individual people regardless of their activities or appearance and and follows those principles himself. Scout, Jem (Justin Smith) and Dill (Jim Barrow), the three children in the play, are often delightful (especially a very comedic Barrow). The stage transforms into the courtroom, a ceiling fan whirling overhead, as Atticus and prosecuting attorney Gilmer (Hue Henry) begin their initial questioning of Sheriff Heck Tate (Bill Akin) before the sometimes bombastic Judge Taylor (Robert Jones). Akin and Henry, who starred together in last season's excellent Waiting for Godot, are a captivating duo once again. Aubrie Merta gives an intense performance as the disoriented and deluded Mayella Ewell, the girl whose accusations stand at the heart of the conflict. Mayella's father, Bob Ewell (Rick Rose), has a Bert Remsen quality about him, with his dull-witted animosity. Finch's neighbors and friends are the essence of Southern cari catures: the crackling old lady Mrs. Dubose (Brenda Cobb) and snooty gossip Stephanie Crawford (Lila Ralston) bubble with refined Southern pride. The mysterious Boo Radley (Bobby Harris) turns out to be different from what the chil dren thought he would be (and there's always the implication that the world would be a better place if everybody just followed Boo's example and stayed inside). The audience serves as the jury, a device that competes with the drama onstage, and seating Atticus's children directly behind the witness stand calls for a major suspension of disbelief that he cannot see them during the trial. The cast was generally good at keeping attention focused in the appropriate place. Those familiar with the book and/or "he film of To Kill A Mockingbird will delight in seeing it staged, and so will those who have never heard of it. Geoff Carr WHAT: To Ml A Mockingbird WHERE: Morton Theatre WHEN: October 5-8 HOW MUCH: $5-$10 she's nuT jEnnv f c new in town. Her name is Tara Rebele (pronounced J rebel-ee), and while her off-stage personality is low- key and polite, she takes on larger dimensions in front of the mic. The young wife and mother hailing originally from New Hampshire is also a spoken word and performance artist, who got her start as a slammer at events like David Oates' "Athens Poetry Slam & Open Mic" at Blue Sky Coffee. She has played venues in New Hampshire, Cambridge and San Francisco, among others. Live- wired, her monologues are bitingly articulate diatribes on self-identity, social pigeon-holing, right-wing bigotry, sex and personal grooming. Much of her work con tains a political subtext (she attended her first ERA protest in the fourth grade); some is auto biographical. By turns gracefully vulnerable and viciously indicting, Tara Rebele is a gust of very fresh air on the local per formance art and spoken word scene. Center stage in the basement of Blue Sky Coffee recently during a pause between rounds of poetry, Rebele played to a packed house with monologues including "Sweet-Sour-Salty- Bitter," "Eighties Triptych" and "Ken & Barbie," wherein a cross-dressing Ken gets in touch with his feminine side as he dumps the pointy-breasted narcissistic Barbie in favor of the ice cream wielding temptress Tara. Her final spoken-word piece, a work in progress titled "I'm Not Jenny," is composed of 10 vignettes in which Rebele traces her ascent from adole c ^ent Jenny-envy to mature womanly shrugging-off of the brutally artificial Jenny aes thetic. But what is a Jenny? "All the Jennies were popular," Rebele laments, "I wanted so bad to be like the smooth Jennies." A young girl of average height, weight and body hair is measuring herself against the unnaturally hairless breed of privileged dain ties who plague summer-camp pecking orders the world over. Through harrowing experiences with hair-removal products, on into teenage years as a self-described slut, our heroine strug gles to prove herself as desirable as the disdainful Jennies. She concludes one chapter with the resigned observa tion "I'm not Jenny. Jennies don't take it in the ass." ("I'm not trying to malign women whose names are Jenny," she assured me.) At the close of the piece she has earned her own identity, and the audience, caught up, cheers her on. Rebele differentiates between spoken word and performance art. Her performance pieces tend to be less directed at the live audience, more theatrical and of longer duration, with props and cos tumes. She plays several characters simultaneously, exploring more com plex issues of female identity, sexuality and selfhood. Upcoming gigs include a performance and lecture at UGA October 25 (time and place TBA), various works in the group show "Exponent: Women/Art/Power" at Clayton Street Gallery in February 2001, a Women's Slam at Above Coffeehouse in March and an as-yet unscheduled event with UGA Poets' Society. Don't miss this sexy wordsmith! Jennifer Schultz VIDEO LIBRARY $ 1°° Rentals! (VHS & DVD!) 5 DAY RENTAL fBiggestl [Store inj Iflihensl h Betas 20 ftlKl I 5 FREE I RENTALS (VHS/DVD) I with NEW | Membership! 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