Susan Booth has ended her 21-year tenure as artistic director of the Alliance Theatre on a distinctly disappointing note, for both her and the audience. The last opening-night curtain speech of her long and illustrious local career was delivered via a prerecorded message because she was self-isolating after testing positive for COVID-19.
I’ve said it before, but in the interest of closure regarding Booth’s work in Atlanta, I’ll say it again: Unlike the vast majority of theatergoers, who seem to give an obligatory standing ovation to 99.9 percent of the shows they see, I can probably count on one hand the number of times I’ve felt compelled to so acknowledge truly worthy accomplishments in truly exceptional circumstances.
On three fingers of my other hand, I can also count the times I wanted to stand up and didn’t. When Kenny Leon officially retired as artistic director of True Colors with his final curtain speech in 2019, instead of taking the initiative myself, I regrettably waited for anyone else in the audience to make the first move, and as an inexplicable result, his much-deserved standing ovation never materialized.
Credit: Greg Mooney
Credit: Greg Mooney
I definitely would’ve extended a similar special recognition to outgoing Theatrical Outfit artistic director Tom Key when he stepped down, too, except that the company’s planned revival of his signature piece, “Cotton Patch Gospel,” was canceled altogether due to the COVID-19 shutdown of 2020.
Which brings us to the opening-night performance of the Alliance’s “Everybody,” which was supposed to be my chance to make a certain amends. I was fully prepared to stand up for Booth — not because I’ve necessarily loved every single thing she has done over the preceding 21 years, and yet, at the same time, specifically because of everything she has achieved here, in its ultimate totality.
Credit: Greg Mooney
Credit: Greg Mooney
Booth may be going out with a whimper, in terms of her opening-night curtain speeches, but she brings to an end her career as an Atlanta-based theater director with a big, bold, beautiful, brilliant, breathtaking bang of a last hurrah. Written by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, and co-directed with Tinashe Kajese-Bolden (who staged the Alliance’s terrific “Toni Stone” earlier this year), “Everybody” is a modernized update of the medieval morality play “Everyman,” and the production is simply stunning.
Now, as then, the story depicts a soul-searching journey for the meaning of life and the struggle to accept the inevitability of death. It’s about confronting and reconciling the vague line between dreams and reality, about the inherent flaws and weaknesses of humanity in general and assuming individual responsibility for one’s own decisions and deeds, and about “existence as a process of self-discovery.” It’s all that — and, in Jacobs-Jenkins’ clever version of events, still rather hilarious on top of all that.
Credit: Greg Mooney
Credit: Greg Mooney
To divulge much more regarding the unique unfolding of “Everybody” would ruin the element of surprise and sheer wonderment in the Alliance show. Part of its premise has been already widely publicized: Some in the cast are assigned fixed roles (Deidrie Henry as “God” and “Understanding,” Andrew Benator as “Death,” Shakirah DeMesier as “Love”), while the remaining ensemble members draw names at each performance to determine who’s portraying which other character(s).
The opening-night audience had the great fortune to witness and savor the graceful and resourceful Courtney Patterson as Everybody, whose portrayal impressed so definitively that it’s hard to imagine any of her fellow “Somebodies” (as they’re billed in the program) — the equally qualified actors Brandon Burditt, Chris Kayser, Bethany Anne Lind and Joseph J. Pendergrast — faring better in the role, or, for that matter, in any part other than those they played so perfectly themselves that night.
Additional kudos go to the striking lighting design of Thom Weaver, the intricate soundscape of Melanie Chen Cole and the efficient projections of Milton Cordero.
Even so, and with all due respect to co-director Kajese-Bolden, the Alliance’s “Everybody” is primarily a testament to Booth and her many years of dedicated service and contribution to the Atlanta theater community. Whether or not she happened to be there in person on opening night to feel or appreciate our gratitude and admiration, I suppose, is finally beside the point.
THEATER REVIEW
“Everybody”
Through Oct. 2. 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays-Thursdays; 8 p.m. Fridays; 2:30 and 8 p.m. Saturdays; 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sundays. $25-$78 ($10 for teens). Alliance Theatre (at the Woodruff Arts Center), 1280 Peachtree St. NE, Atlanta. 404-733-4600, alliancetheatre.org.
Bottom line: An appropriately bold and brilliant last hurrah for departing Alliance artistic director Susan Booth.
