In the unlikely event that avid Atlanta theatergoers hadn’t already heard about a changing of the guard at 7 Stages, the company’s latest production is a fairly obvious sign of it.
The indomitable troupe was co-founded nearly 35 years ago by Del Hamilton and Faye Allen, both of whom stepped down last year, handing over their duties (as artistic director and managing director, respectively) to a new and younger generation in Heidi S. Howard and Mack Headrick.
The old 7 Stages carved out a decided niche for itself with a sometimes profound, other times ponderous propensity for the avant-garde, specializing in relatively obscure international plays or in rarely performed works by better-known writers. Laugh-out-loud contemporary American comedies, needless to say, were nowhere on the agenda.
But Howard and Headrick’s inaugural undertaking, “Angry Fags,” is just that, basically. While it’s easy to respect their gumption, whether they’re boldly breaking with tradition or suddenly conforming to it is open to debate. Sure, it’s a different kind of show for 7 Stages, and yet it’s no different from what you might see at any number of other venues around town.
Penned by local playwright Topher Payne (“Evelyn in Purgatory”), “Angry Fags” is less situational and more plot-driven than a lot of his comedies. It’s easy to respect Payne’s gumption, too, even though his reach ultimately exceeds his grasp, promising more than he actually delivers.
Directed by Justin Anderson (“Tigers Be Still”), the play is partly a political satire about the re-election of an openly lesbian Georgia state senator (played by Melissa Carter) and the prim housewife and mother who’s running against her (Marcie Millard, splendid as usual). In Payne’s balanced characterizations, the liberal-minded incumbent isn’t exactly a paragon of virtue and her right-wing opponent isn’t simply a target for ridicule.
The play is also partly a romantic comedy involving the senator’s gay campaign manager. Actor Jacob York patterns a truly affable protagonist, at least until the story’s greater implications kick in and spiral wildly out of control. His affair with a co-worker (John Benzinger) is sweet enough and he makes a fine straight man to the somewhat clichéd role of a flighty, wise-cracking roommate and best friend (Johnny Drago).
It’s as self-aggrandizing social commentary that “Angry Fags” loses its sense of purpose and credibility. A tragic hate crime provokes the two roomies to become “domestic terrorists” bent on “vigilante justice.” One minute, they’re cavorting around a bath house in a silly scene worthy of “The Ritz”; in the next, they’re blowing up buildings and shrugging off innocent lives as so many “casualties of war.” Their drastic mood swings are largely unsubstantiated, the melodramatic climax almost ludicrous.
The play is overlong by a good 30 minutes – do we really need a subplot about the cop investigating the crime(s)? – and Anderson’s pacing is periodically sluggish. He relies a bit heavily on video designer Casey D. Williams’ “newsreel” footage, which doesn’t advance the story so much as it stalls for time during the scene changes.
Inexplicably, “Angry Fags” demonizes the very characters you’d think Payne would want to vindicate. Instead it’s a conservative Republican who comes off smelling like a rose.
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THEATER REVIEW
“Angry Fags”
Grade: C
Through March 17. 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays; 5 p.m. Sundays; 2 p.m. Saturday (March 9). $20. 7 Stages, 1105 Euclid Ave. (in Little Five Points). 404-523-7647. 7stages.org.
Bottom line: Off-kilter.
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