Envy May 14 2003

William Shakespeare may not have invented envy, but he did create our literature's most emblematically envious characters. His greatest villains seethe with resentment at real and imagined inequities, like Richard III, Iago in Othello and the bastard son Edmund in King Lear. Shakespeare concisely evoked the feeling of envy and its ill effects in lines like Henry VI, Part I's "When Envy breeds unkind division: There comes the ruin, there begins confusion" or Troilus and Cressida's pithy "Thou damnable box of envy, thou."

Envy influences all three of the plays in the Georgia Shakespeare Festival's summer repertory, although the theater maintains a light frame of mind for its 18th season. In Much Ado About Nothing, which opens the season June 11, the conniving, illegitimate Don John (Chris Ensweiler) is like a junior version of Lear's Edmund, spitefully sewing discord among the characters. Kenny Leon directs Carolyn Cook and Chris Kayser as squabbling lovers-to-be Beatrice and Benedick.

Shakespeare's seldom staged, late-period romance Cymbeline, opening July 10, also spotlights envy through the mischief of Iachimo (Brad Sherrill), a schemer nicknamed "the little Iago" by Shakespeare scholars, who comes between faithful Imogen (Courtney Patterson) and her husband Posthumus (Joe Knezevich).

Sexual jealousy is sort of a sibling sin to envy, and while Shakespeare penned the monstrously jealous Othello and Leontes in A Winter's Tale, Moliere was no slouch at capturing human vice. Beginning June 26, Karen Robinson directs the Festival's School For Wives, in which the irrational Arnolphe (Kayser) is so suspicious of his innocent bride Agnes (Karan Kendrick) that he goes to wild lengths to keep her sheltered.

Envy and jealousy rear their green-eyed heads in modern theater as well. In Dad's Garage's Bat Boy: The Musical, the half-man, half-bat (Clifton Guterman) of tabloid fame is in fact a lovelorn, misunderstood mutant who longs to be accepted by human society. In his song, "Let Me Walk Among You," he croons, "I envy you your lives ... Let me file your taxes, I am a CPA / And maybe then you'll shake my hand some day."

Directed by Sean Daniels, Bat Boy features such reliable musical entertainers as Jill Hames and Michael Schneider, and plays May 23-June 1 at the Alliance Theatre's Hertz Stage, then moves to Dad's Garage June 6.

In the rock musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch, playing at Actor's Express beginning May 22, the title character (Mark Salyer) has plenty to be envious about. Not only does she sing in obscurity while her musical protege becomes a pop megastar, Hedwig's not even, strictly speaking, a "she," explaining in the memorable rhyme: "My sex change operation got botched ... Now all I've got is a Barbie doll crotch." During the show's run, Actor's Express will convert its theater seating to cabaret-style tables, and even offer a bar during the show.

Marietta's Theatre in the Square gives a platform to a dramatically different kind of diva with Mahalia: A Gospel Musical beginning May 7. Carol Mitchell-Leon directs Bernadine Mitchell as "the Queen of Gospel Music" Mahalia Jackson in this tribute to her life and career, co-starring Rene Clark and Aaron Dale.

Greek tragedy, not gospel music, provides artistic release for black characters in The Island by Athol Fugard — one of the world's greatest living playwrights — which Theatrical Outfit presents July 17-Aug. 10 (in conjunction with the National Black Arts Festival July 19-27). Kenny Leon stars in this drama about South African prisoners who stage a defiant version of Sophocles' Antigone.

7 Stages addresses equally challenging material with Arthur Miller's Broken Glass, directed by the acclaimed Joseph Chaikin beginning May 17. The recent play by the author of Death of a Salesman depicts a housewife in the 1930s trying to make sense of Krystalnacht and other events of the European Holocaust.

The New Jomandi showcases another veteran American playwright with Lavender Lizards and Lilac Landmines, a world premiere "choreopoem" by Ntozake Shange, writer of for colored girls who have considered suicide (when the rainbow is enuf). The Alliance Theatre, meanwhile, revives Stephen Sondheim's lesser-known Pacific Overtures, a musical look at Japan's first encounter with America in 1853, running through June 1.

Synchronicity Performance Group book-ends the summer with two Southern premieres. Neena Beber's comedy Hard Feelings, running June 6-July 6, depicts an electrolysist's complex relationships with her daughter, grandmother and girlfriend. Lobster Alice dramatizes surrealist Salvador Dali's adventures in Hollywood to make a film version of Alice in Wonderland from Aug. 15-Sept. 14.

Horizon Theatre's fifth annual New South Festival features the world premiere of Atlanta playwright Janece Shaffer's Wishful Thinking, in which long-separated childhood friends are reunited when their girlish fantasies about mermaids and fairies become unnervingly real.

The Horizon festival also gives a full production to The Fula From America: An African Journey, a one-man show written and performed by Carlisle Brown. Running in repertory beginning June 13, the playwright describes his bittersweet comic journey to Africa, where he searches for his cultural roots only to learn that he's an American at heart.

Working Title Playwrights offers a rotating repertory of light-hearted local plays, Triple Leap, running at Neighborhood Playhouse's Discovery Arena from May 22 through June 29. Joey Cleary's afterlife satire Death and the Middleman opens the series May 22, followed by Hank Kimmel's stay-at-home father comedy Daddy's Home May 28 and Karla Jennings' corporate/technological spoof Land of the Free Fall opening June 4.

And supporters of Atlanta playwrights will want to come out for Marki Shalloe's Ariadne's Thread at Onstage Atlanta opening Aug. 14. Winner of Onstage Atlanta's 2003 Hometown Playwrights series, the world premiere depicts a priest who tries to save the soul of a jailed real estate swindler in the 1920s.

Of course, many of the summer's plays aren't overtly about envy, but that doesn't mean that jealousy won't be playing a major part in the productions. As eloquently shown in the film All About Eve, theater teems with understudies craving stage time, bit players seeking more of the spotlight and backstage artists denied the ovations that are their due. Competitive envy might be the engine that keeps theater going.

curt.holman@creativeloafing.com
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