Stage Review: 'All God's Creatures' poignantly shows corruption of fame
With his New York accent and his expressive personality, actor David Prete has a way of making a stage shrink in around him.
The oversized characters he plays in “All God’s Creatures,” a poignant one-man show running through Sunday at TheatreWorks as part of Playhouse on the Square’s Solo Works Series, are boldly and sometimes tragically rendered, a necessity given the show’s message about a man trying to make it in the soul-sucking entertainment industry.
In Memphis from New York, actor-writer David Prete find he's ''reconnecting'' to the world.
STORY TOOLS
RELATED STORIES
More Stage Reviews
- Stage Review: Wallace keeps dreams alive in stirring one-man show
- Stage Review: 'Over the Tavern' is comic relief from the 1950s
- Concert Review: MSO's Opus One offers opulent evening of casual fun
Share and Enjoy [?]
Prete first staged this work several years ago as a no-frills production in Playhouse’s Memphian room. This time around, the costume changes, lighting and sound effects add more to the atmosphere of the piece. But it’s Prete’s own prior experience performing the script by Alex Lyras that gives this production its comic detail and its tragic reality.
Unraveling as a series of monologues, the show opens with a Hispanic production assistant on a TV shoot barking orders to the extras milling around. Among them is a young Catholic priest, for whom this minor part is a thrilling and seductive experience.
Next, Prete plays a shifty talent agent who assures the priest that he has “that special thing” guaranteed to make him famous. He convinces the priest that an acting career is much better than holding mass every week. “You could spread your wisdom a thousand times what you could get in a dinky little church,” he says, rubbing his nose, which is stuffed with narcotics. “You’ll be wearing a diamond cross at the Academy Awards.”
Prete’s later portraits of a Hollywood producer and a motivational speaker illustrate that the priest has already begun his downhill slide. He stays propped up not by the God that he once prayed to, but by false hopes. “That special thing” turns out to be a very convincing mirage.
When the audience finally meets the priest in person, he’s working the velvet rope outside a nightclub and then tending bar, getting farther away from his core beliefs. His lowest point is telling the story of his downfall for spare change on a subway.
Maybe the priest is deluded from the beginning, or maybe he’s an artist on a journey. Either way, Lyras’ script intelligently shows the corrupting influence of fame and fortune on one man’s soul. And not just any soul: the soul of a priest who chooses his own fall from grace.
“All God’s Creatures”
The show continues at 8 tonight and 2 p.m. Sunday at TheatreWorks, 2085 Monroe. Tickets are $20. Call 726-4656.
Comments » 0
Be the first to post a comment!
Share your thoughts
Comments are the sole responsibility of the person posting them. You agree not to post comments that are off topic, defamatory, obscene, abusive, threatening or an invasion of privacy. Violators may be banned. Click here for our full user agreement.