In a nutshell: Wickedly funny and definitely disturbing (but in the best possible way!) Four and a half out of five stars.

I’ll be upfront about the Tennessee Rep’s latest production: It’s a humdinger. Filled with brutal emotional upheavals, literary in-jokes, rapid-fire obscenity-laden dialogue, and some pretty damn intense scenes, Albee’s The Goat is a challenging piece of theatre, and the Rep carries it out to great effect. If you’re uncomfortable sliding down the ideological slippery slopes of incest, homosexuality, adultery, and—of course—bestiality, you’d better stay at home and watch American Idol. Seriously. Albee probably wouldn’t want your conventional, boring ass there anyway. If, however, you’re up for something different, and willing to have a laugh at the impressive array of goat-buggering jokes, you’re in for a real theatre treat.

It begins, you see, with Martin—a well-respected and eminently respectable architect. He’s been happily married for 20+ years to Stevie, the mother of his teenage son; and his best friend Ross is interviewing him for a television show. It’s been a landmark year for Martin: he just turned 50; has been honored with the Pritzker Architecture Prize; and was recently selected to design the World City, a corporate-sponsored community being built in the middle of a cornfield. Despite the minor indignities of middle age, Martin is at the top of the world. And, incidentally, he’s having a love affair with Sylvia, who turns out to be a goat.

The subsequent action in the play—how he confesses his attachment to Ross who, in turn, tells Stevie; and how his son and wife confront this mind-blowing announcement—plays out with great emotional realism and sometimes sickening honesty, despite the absurd premise, in large part because of the likable helplessness of Martin himself. This is a character largely free from malice; he seems just as nonplussed by the goatish nature of his lover as anyone, but is sincere in his affection. But while the audience can afford to extend its sympathy to Martin, the other characters in the play—bound to him by ties of blood, marriage, and friendship—are not so generous. And the resulting fireworks, and the shocking ending, are well worth watching.

Actor Matthew Carlton deserves a goat-load of credit for his portrayal of Martin, who is the heart of the play. It is a hell of a task to make a character who gets emotional with livestock, betrays his wife, and calls his teenage son a “faggot” relatable, but that is precisely what Mr. Carlton achieves. Martin is flawed, but Martin is also suffering and it hurts to watch his reaction as his comfortable life unravels. Ruth Cordell’s Stevie is, as she should be, Martin’s perfect foil. While he is careless and forgetful, she is well-polished and deliberately-spoken. She is—to use an entirely outdated term—a classy broad; sophisticated, intelligent, and straight-up MILF material to boot. She can even make a word like “hooters” sound proper when she speaks, which is why it is so delightful to watch her politeness slowly disintegrate as her fury at Martin increases. When the explosion finally comes, it is breathtaking.

Mr. Carlton and Ms. Cordell have excellent chemistry and are a pleasure to watch in their scenes together. They are entirely believable as a committed, long-term couple: even in the midst of the upheaval Sylvia has thrown into their marriage, Stevie and Martin are clearly well-matched. These are people who have a multitude of shared experiences and tastes in common; they even crack inside jokes during the all-out verbal battle that results from Martin’s affair, making the rupture of their obvious camaraderie all the more tragic and painful to watch.

Henry Haggard’s Ross is great fun. He’s a refreshing type: a bluff, uncompromising realist who calls a spade a spade, the fresh smells of the country “cow shit,” and Martin a “goat-fucker.” In all honesty, any line-up of characters benefits from someone who cuts through the bullshit and brings the conversation around to tits or dicks. It makes the dialogue infinitely more entertaining. The character of Ross seems to serve mostly as an X-rated form of comic release, but he is a primary catalyst in the events that transpire. And Andy Kanies does very well with the role of Billy, Martin and Stevie’s teenage son. While Mr. Kanies began rather nervously (and had a tendency to express those nerves in somewhat distracting hand movements), he soon hit his stride and was absolutely fantastic in the challenging third act. Albee didn’t spare his youngest character any punches; and the role of Billy requires as much passion and honesty as any other. His fury at his father (which becomes tempered with pity) and his eager desire to protect his mother, along with the added element of his homosexuality, make him far more than the typical two-dimensional portrait of a teenager.

The set is beautiful; apt in its conception and exquisitely executed. This is, after all, the home of an architect, and Gary C. Hoff has cannily captured the peculiar blend of industrial-meets-organic interior design favored by men of that profession (and which eloquently touches upon the urban-versus-country subtext of the play, as it is Martin’s quest for a pastoral utopia that introduces him to Sylvia in the first place). The table legs are tree limbs made of steel; river rock, leather, rich wood, and water features are used to great effect; and the minimalist art on the walls provides spots of vibrant color amidst the natural elements and earth tones of the contemporary furniture. A special shout-out is especially due to Kate Foreman for providing an abundance of permanent-looking and attractive props that can be smashed to smithereens every evening. The costuming is similarly flawless. (Bravo, Trish Clark; particularly for Stevie’s creamy second-act ensemble, which reappears with great effect in the conclusion of the play.)

All in all, it is an incredibly strong production; when considering the difficulty of the material and how smoothly and effectively it is presented, the only criticisms that can be made seem insignificant and are the sorts of things that will inevitably smooth themselves out during the course of the run. The destruction in the woman-scorned rampage was just a shade tentative (which is not surprising, considering few productions regularly encourage actors to throw the furniture around with reckless abandon). And the powers that be might want to move the seats a little further from the stage, or encourage eye protection for those ticketholders in the front rows, as the shrapnel from the aforementioned rampage seemed to fly a little further than anticipated. (Also, in an entirely personal matter of taste, I wasn’t an enormous fan of the music used to segue from act to act.)

In short, The Goat is one of the funniest and most uniquely enjoyable theatre experiences you’re likely to have this year. It dances lustily onto ground brave men have feared to tread; and challenges societal notions about love, sex, commitment, and normalcy that most people hold inviolable. You’ll laugh out loud (abundantly), you’ll gasp with shock (frequently), and I can guarantee an ending that will elicit a strong reaction. Whether it will startle you into silence or make you roar with sheer delight in its ballsiness, is something you’ll have to determine for yourself; but I assure you that you will leave the theatre lost in thought… and unable to look at a goat the same way again.

Originally published by the Nashville Edge, 2007-2008.

IN A NUTSHELL: Damn good, highly entertaining; but might not be everyone’s cup of tea.

The idea of putting It’s a Wonderful Life on stage is pretty ballsy. The idea of staging it as a live radio play in 1946 is even ballsier. People cling tightly to their cherished holiday traditions, and—as the tepid production of White Christmas that is currently visiting town can attest—not every Christmas classic should make the jump into live theatre. Fortunately, the immensely talented crew at the Tennessee Rep has managed to give the gang from Bedford Falls the translation to the stage that they deserve. Though its format might be challenging to those unaware of the significance (or even existence) of live radio dramas, it is a tight production and deserves a huge round of applause, a fuckload of kudos, and almost four of those little gold star stickers your first grade teacher used to attach to your homework.

The gimmick, if it may be so called, of It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play is that the entire epic tale of disappointment, love, hardship, victory against oppression, and the value of friendship is scheduled to be broadcast, live, as a radio play by five actors (each of whom, with the Rep’s admirable thoroughness, has been given a backstory and a professional resume). As a point of added interest, one of the actors passes out on the very verge of going on the air, throwing the entire cast into a frenzy and forcing the piano player to make his theatrical debut. While they act out the dialogue, utilizing every voice within their repertoire, the cast also scramble to provide the appropriate musical cues and sound effects; pausing for commercial interruptions in the form of jingles for products like hair tonic and toilet cakes.

The Rep gets mad props for thoroughly saturating the audience in the atmosphere; when I walked in to take my seat, the stage was already abuzz. The actors were in character and making preparations to go on the air. David Alford (as Freddie “Fingers” Filmore) was playing Christmas music on the piano, while Matthew Carlton (as Harry “Jazzbo” Heywood) roamed the aisles playing a ukelele. Marin Miller (as Sally Applewhite) and Jenny Littleton (as Lana Sherwood) hung daintily over the piano, chatting and studying the script, while Todd Truly (as Jake Laurents) made himself a cup of coffee. An underling in period garb walked around nervously with a clipboard and managed to infect the audience with a growing sense of anticipication.

The set, I might add, is an absolute jewel of blue and silver Art Deco goodness. Gary Hoff and his team have built something so complete and detailed that it looks like a permanent fixture; from the architectural “APPLAUSE” and “ON THE AIR” signs flanking the stage to the custom steel work on the furniture, the entire thing is elegantly stylized, but entirely believable. And the furniture is not the only thing to strike an authentic period note. Kate Foreman, the props assistant, has supplied the flustered actors with a fascinating array of real, old-fashioned noise-making devices from radio’s golden age. Shoes on planks of wood, wind machines, bags of cornstarch, and all sorts of mysterious doo-dads and gadgets give the production a nice touch of genuine 40s charm.

The costuming also reflects the extensive research the Rep always puts behind its efforts. From the lovely custom-made hats on the actresses to the cut of the men’s brightly-colored suits, Trish Clark and her squad have given the cast clothing suitable to the era and their own characters’ backstories. Sally Applewhite (Miss Ohio 1943, to be exact) possesses a pink suit, trimmed with white fur and rhinestone detailing, that is especially dreamy; Betty Grable herself would have cut a bitch to get her little manicured paws on something this glamorous. Everybody onstage looks great from the tip of their elaborate coiffures to the toes of their shoes.

The cast did a tremendous job with the 20+ characters in the script, though each actor had a “voice” or two that were definite crowd favorites. David Alford was especially notable for his drunky Uncle Billy and enthusiastically accented Martini. Matthew Carlton deserves particular praise for his crabby-old-man-who-pronounces-his-Bs-very-strangely Mr. Potter and his gentle Angel Second Class, Clarence. Jenny Littleton wins a special place in my heart for being able to switch from baby-breathed Violet to lug-headed taxi driver Ernie and back again in the course of a few seconds. Marin Miller gave Mary Bailey believable girl-next-door sex appeal and did a Zsu Zsu guaranteed to make your heart melt. And Todd Truly lived up to the unenviable task of playing George Bailey, a character that will always, until the end of fucking time, be considered the rightful property of one Mr. Jimmy Stewart.

All in all, it’s hard to pick a fault with any aspect of the production, unless it is the fact that nobody thought to slip a printout of the words to Auld Lang Syne into the program, which might have avoided a somewhat awkward moment in the final scene. Audience participation was encouraged, and the blank looks and silent tongues of my fellow theatre-goers and myself just goes to prove that nobody actually knows the lyrics to that damn song. But, obscure song lyrics aside, the important details of costume and set were immaculately attended to, the acting was sharp, and the technical aspects of the production went smoothly.

However, the experience itself, while entertaining, did not feel—to me—quite as emotionally engrossing as the film. While the actors truly did a wonderful job and managed to convey the villainy of Potter and George’s quiet heroism with only their voices, the audience’s reaction to certain poignant scenes seemed dulled slightly by the slapstick mayhem created by the set-up. Don’t get me wrong: it’s entertaining to laugh when an actor uses an incongruous voice, but the laugh perhaps inevitably saps a bit of the emotional vitality from the lines. And while I enjoyed myself thoroughly, I did wonder how the children of the multimedia age will connect with this production. Will a generation that has been bombarded with fast cuts and snappy soundbites since birth find jingles for Lux toilet cakes (“The Toilet Cake that brought our Boys Home!!”) mystifying rather than amusing? Thanks to the usual suspects of video games and graphic special effects, do they lack the imagination required to make the leap from hearing the story to actually feeling something about it?

As I’ve said, it takes balls to reinvent a classic and do it well, and risks of that sort should be amply rewarded. And, despite minor distractions and slight challenges, theatergoers of all generations can find something to love in this story that has stood the test of time so well and remains, to this day, a compelling look at the scope of a single human life and the triumph of decency. George Bailey is truly a hero for the ages, and the Rep gives him the loving tribute he deserves.

Originally published by the Nashville Edge, 2007-2008.