The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Reach exceeds grasp: ‘We Are a Masterpiece’ takes place during ’80s AIDS crisis
If successful professional troupes such as the Alliance or Theatrical Outfit could be considered as Atlanta’s equivalent to Broadway, then Out of Box Theatre is more like the metro area’s off-Broadway (or even off-off-Broadway).
Founded in 2012 by artistic director Carolyn Choe, the company operates in an intimate blackbox studio space at the Artisan Resource Center in Marietta, performing to audiences of 50 or so people, in shows featuring generally threadbare budgets and comparatively less accomplished actors and designers.
What distinguishes Out of Box from other so-called “community theaters” is its tendency to tackle adventurous, offbeat material — renowned plays like “Art” and “The Pillowman” or musicals like “Assassins,” and even occasional regional premieres like the Tonywinning “Fun Home” (currently receiving a much loftier production at Actor’s Express).
As the latest case in point, “We Are a Masterpiece” (by Gina Femia) largely unfolds in the early 1980s, during the onset of a “gay cancer” that would soon become known as AIDS. The drama takes place in relatively remote Kalamazoo, Michigan, centering around a local nurse named Joan (played by Choe), who steps up to personally comfort and professionally care for those afflicted patients that others in town narrow-mindedly ostracize.
“Masterpiece” is guest-directed by New York-based Dominic
D’Andrea, the director of community engagement at Queens Theatre and creator of the nationwide One-Minute Play Festival. His production values are fairly negligible — the period details are mostly defined by projected supertitles or limited to mentions in the script of popular TV shows at the time — but the show’s bigger problem is its unfocused plotline.
The occasional narrator of the play is an art gallery owner named Ryan (Davin Allen Grindstaff ), and one of his primary friends and potential clients is a “chaotic” artist named John (Zachary Stolz). Otherwise, with the possible exception of a warmhearted hospital custodian named Tom (Bob Smith), too many of Femia’s other characters are too poorly developed to effectively matter, and a few of them seem downright extraneous and unnecessary.
We barely get to know John’s lover, Charles (Evan Vihlen), before he “succumbs to the plague,” which undercuts the emotion of a scene involving John literally painting him. We know even less about Ryan’s ill-fated lover, Greg (Connor Sofia), so that when his spirit eventually materializes for a fantasy dance sequence, it’s oddly unmoving. And who is this Gerald character (Stuart Schleuse), who turns up just long enough to sing a lovely aria?
Conversely, we get more information than we really want or need about Joan. Among the distractions from her more relevant interactions with John and Ryan (and, later, with Tom): dealing with a pair of irresponsible, one-dimensional coworkers (Amanda Cucher and Parris Sarter); a lot of talk about her divorce from an abusive husband; an argumentative relationship with her teenage daughter (Lily Kerrigan); her estrangement from her brother (Zip Rampy), a pious priest; even her former friendship with a fellow church choir member (Emily Kalat).
Wearing its heart squarely on its sleeve, “We Are a Masterpiece” certainly means well. Although the Out of Box undertaking is a righteous one, it doesn’t quite live up to the play’s own assertion about high art as a way of capturing the truth or making something extraordinary out of the mundane.