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HEAVY IS THE HEAD
Those readers with exceptionally long memo
ries or entirely too much time on their hands to
sift through back issues of this fine magazine
will note that I'm wielding a fiddle I've bowed
before. Yet the fact remains unchanged: once the
stubborn, brown fog of January malaise lifts and
the store shelves start baiting the susceptible
with crimson-bedecked confections, the mind
inevitably begins to drift to thoughts amorous.
Certainly, one could stand stolid in disaffection-
ate defiance, but to what end? When so win-
ningly urged to indulge, who among us has the
heart hard enough to refuse? With the possible
exception of an entire mixed chocolate heart and
a magnum bottle of some smoky red. there is no
finer way to genuflect before the saintly visage
of Valentine than with the classic dinner and
a show—the age-old sentimental silver bullet
still secreted amongst the keenest tools of the
Cassanovic arsenal. Thankfully for the romanti
cally inept and/ or lazy, the stages around town
have long been bustling in preparation for taking
the onus of incertitude from the more entertain
ing half of that equation. All that remains then
is to remember to call for early reservations.
So Many People: Displaying typically impeccable
timing while simultaneously rendering fool
proof the aforementioned classic tryst, Athens
Creative Theatre has chosen Tony-packing
playwright Jason Roberts Brown's song-cycle
musical The Last Five Years as the rhapsodically
bittersweet main course of their spring dinner
theatre performance. Ingeniously weaving to
gether the all-too-familiar tale of the rise and
fall of a relationship, the initial performances
of this musical were so engaging that no less
discerning a source than the Old Gray Lady her
self took the show as evidence that Brown had
placed himself in the vanguard of a new vision of
American musical theatre. By turns risible, rap
turous and plaintive, The Last Five Years bristles
with indelible melodies as it trips back and forth
down a crumbling memory lane. ACT's production
of this remarkable show runs at Memorial Park
Quinn Hall every Friday and Saturday at 7:30
p.m., Feb. 10-A^.. . T; ckets for the whole expe
rience are $21.95. witF . asses for just the show
at S15, $12 for senic s. at. 1 $10 for students/
children. Call the ACT box o.fice at 613-3628 to
set your date.
Withering Heighs: Though befuddled critics ini
tially gave Emily Bronte's only novel a decidedly
inhospitable reception, the matryoshka doll plot-
line, fearlessly poetic prose, and richly evocative
grayscale landscape that made the book such a
literary oddity at the time of its publishing have
since earned Wuthering Heights a reputation as
one of the finest works in the English canon. The
book bears testament to the fantastical Gothic
realms the motherless Bronte siblings dreamed
up during their childhood on the Pennine moors
and, more specifically, to the ecstatic imagina
tion of the middle Bronte herself. PEN Award
winning playwright and current UGA PhD candi
date Cheryldee Huddleston's Children of an Idol
Moon examines the cloistered, haunted world of
Emily Bronte, the complex relationships she had
with her siblings, and the multi-layered parallels
between the creator and what she created. Ms.
Huddleston, who has worked closely with the ac
tors and director, will celebrate the Southeastern
premiere of the show at the Seney-Stovall
Chapel, Feb. 16 at 8 p.m. The show continues
Feb. 17-18 and 22-25 at 8 p.m., with a Sunday
matinee Feb. 26 at 2:30 p.m. Call the UGA box
office at 542-2838 for $12 tickets, or $10 if you
happen to be a student or a senior.
What She Said: It may be the most liberating
word in the English language. Go ahead and try
it: vagina. The lilting trio of syllables rolling
from the tongue still provokes
the feeling that one is glee
fully trampling one of the most
stubborn and irrational of our
remaining puritanical hedgerows.
For the last five years, a group of
local women have courageously
taken to the stage in a show
popular and powerful enough
that it put that mellifluous
word into unabashed parlance
at the most unlikely of places.
Continuing a tradition that has
become one of the staples of
the yearly theatre scene. The
Vagina Monologues will show
at the UGA Chapel, Friday, Feb.
10 through Sunday, Feb. 12 at 8
p.m. Tickets cost $15 and are on
sale at Frontier, Urban Sanctuary
and the Project Safe Thrift Store. Best of all, as
the proceeds benefit Project Safe.
We Owe God A Death: While it remains less
popular than many of the Bard's more fanciful
creations. William Shakespeare's two-part epic
history of the physically and politically besieged
reign of Henry IV. first king of the red rose
Lancaster dynasty, is one of the finest history
plays in the language. Whittling the enormous
original text into a taut single evening of the
atre. director Steven Carroll and adapter Jessica
Maerz have carved away the fat of the script,
with its numerous plot twists and machinations,
and pushed the tortured father-son relation
ship always at the heart of the production fully
into the spotlight. In addition to chronicling
the troubled rule of a fascinating sovereign.
King Henry the Fourth also introduced one
of Shakespeare's most memorable characters:
Falstaff, whose bawdy, liquor-breathed apo
phthegms represent some of the Bard's most
arresting insights into the human condition.
The opportunity to see the full arc of the story
through both halves of this weighty and mag
isterial play in a single evening is indeed a
rare treat. However, as the show is part of the
Town and Gown Players' Second Stage slate,
there will only be three opportunities to see it:
Athens Community Theatre on Friday, Feb. 10 and
Saturday, Feb. 11 at 8 p.m., and Sunday, Feb. 12
at 2 p.m. Tickets are $5. Perhaps bloody, carous
ing history doesn't seem like date night fare, but
consider it an unparalleled opportunity to test
the taste and mettle of any perspective someone.
High School Hijinx: Clarke Central's Central
Players present Anything Goes, a "high en
ergy musical with high stepping choreography,
tapdancing and swinging songs." CCHS Mell
Auditorium, Feb. 9-11 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are
$5 for students, $7 for adults. Call 357-5200.
Brandon Waddell
Show your affection via outthere@flagpole.
com, and put "Theatre Notes" in the subject tine.
Children of an Idol Moon
bob (SALON)
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Real Men
Play
Hardball!
eu. 2000
2006 Draft
March 4
2006 AAMBL
SEASON STARTS
IN APRIL
18 AND OVER LEAGUE
$200 Per Player
28 AND OVER LEAGUE
$200 Per Player
Contact the League 706-548-4289 or
peterthome@charter.iiet
www.aambl.com
CALL ASAP TO GET IN
ON LEAGUE PRACTICES
PRIOR TO DRAFT
FEBRUARY 8,2006 • FLAGPOLE.COM 17