One of my absolute all-time favorite books is A Confederacy of Dunces. I laugh aloud at Ignatius. It’s an amazing thing to me for a book to actually make someone laugh aloud, to the point of eye rolling by others in the room. (Which may or may not have happened repeatedly the last time I read it). For those who haven’t read it, the book is a first novel, written by John Kennedy Toole and published posthumously, about a great blasphemous child-man who knows that he is simply too smart for his own good, but isn’t really. Him and his momma, and a seedy bar, and a pants factory. And it’s set in New Orleans, in the 60’s, with characters that are despicable and pitiful or conniving and hilarious, or all four.

I was thrilled to see that a stage adaptation of Confederacy is running right now at um, Theatrical Outfit, a group that I’m ashamed to say I had never heard of.  Even though they have been on Luckie Street in downtown since 2004, and has been running since 1974. Information on the show is here – warning, video automatically starts streaming, and CL review is here.  They’ve extended their run to September 12^th. I plan on attending that last weekend – has anyone seen the show? Planning on it?

just a few short weeks ago, I was completely unfamiliar with cormac mccarthy’s one-act play the sunset limited. actually i am not even sure i knew that cormac mccarthy even wrote plays. a few weeks back i heard two actors talking about a product of the sunset limited they were performing in, that was taking place in downtown atlanta. the interview, broadcast on am 1690 (a definite favorite of mine), and subsequent several minutes of dialogue from the play they performed on the radio, intrigued me tremendously.

thus, when scoutmob (twitter; @scoutmob) showed up in my inbox the next morning with a 50% coupon for the same play (thanks scoutmob!) i decided to check it out.
so last night i went to theatrical outfit (twitter; @theatoutfit), which is in a small theater next to the rialto and saw one of the best stage productions i have ever seen in this city.

a one-act play that deals with complex issues like race, religion, faith and futility and suicide is not an easy thing to pull off (see the wikipedia entry on sunset limited for a primer on the plot), and to make it work, the actors better be damn good. and in this production they were.

the actor playing “black” was amazing; forceful and tender and with an incredible grasp of the rhythm of the dialogue that mccarty wrote for him. in fact through most of the play i kept thinking that he was overpowering the actor playing “white” and this was my one criticism of the play.

until the end, when i realized the director had done this intentionally, keeping “white” subdued and almost and blank canvas for “black” to paint on. It stayed this way, until about 2/3 of the way through the play, when “white” burst forward dominating the stage and “black.” very impressive feat of acting to pull off if you ask me, being able to hold back like that and then scream forward right at the end.

it’s a complicated work and i am still digesting what it means and what i truly think of what was presented. However, you only have a few more days to see this, so i wanted to get this review out, because if you are a theatre fan or a fan of cormac mccarthy you really owe it to yourself to get downtown and see this before it closes out.

sunset limited
theatrical outfit
through april 11
balzer theater
84 luckie street nw
atlanta, ga 30303
678-528-1500