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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2010 > February > 19
Friday, February 19, 2010
And the People’s Choice winner is…
James Tisdale’s other-worldly sculpture ‘Squirrelly’ has been voted as the 2009 People’s Choice selection to join the permanent collection at Austin City Hall.
Tisdale’s sculpture was one of more than 100 artworks on view at Austin City Hall last year as part of the annual People’s Gallery Exhibition that features work by Austin-area artists. Each year visitors to City Hall vote for their favorite artwork.
The announcement was made tonight at the opening of the 2010 People’s Gallery Exhibition, the newest iteration of the public art program.
Vincent E. Kitch, Cultural Arts Program Manager for the city of Austin, said ‘Squirrelly’ proved so popular with visitors that they left nuts and other objects at the sculpture’s base. Those items will be incorporated into the artwork, Kitsch said.
Photo courtesy Cultural Arts Program,
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Review: ‘The Atheist’
People will do some pretty twisted things to get famous.
The lengths one man goes to in pursuit of fame—burning down the trailer he grew up in and making public a secret sex tape featuring his girlfriend, to name just a few—are at the heart of Hyde Park Theatre’s production of “The Atheist,” a dark comedy by Irish-born playwright Ronan Noone.
“The Atheist” is a one-person show about Augustine Early (Joey Hood), who, as a young man growing up in a trailer park, realized early on that he had a talent for deception and a craving for fame.
As a journalist always in pursuit of the big story, Early will do just about anything for a good headline. (A good headline, by the way, must be “Two hundred point font. Times Roman. BOLD.”)
Early has abandoned his faith in God, his faith in everything, really. He is pompous and cynical. He is also manipulative, cocky, and misogynist. Just in case it’s not quite clear yet, this character is totally, utterly unlikeable.
And yet Joey Hood, in a charismatic and confident performance, makes Early watchable and compelling. His ease on stage and spot-on comic timing keeps the audience interested in the hilariously absurd and often vile things coming from his mouth. Hood’s energy and commitment never waver. He keeps the audience on the hook, waiting to see whether this character is worthy of redemption or is a totally lost soul. (You’ll have to see it to find out.)
The production, directed by Ken Webster, is clean and sharp. Early tells his story to a video camera while a live feed of his image gets projected behind him, creating the feeling of a reality-TV confessional.
In its final moments, the show’s critique of the relentless quest for fame becomes clear. It might make you think twice before picking up that copy of US Weekly for the latest celebrity scandal. After all, who knows what the writer had to do to get that story.
‘The Atheist’ continues through March 13, Thursdays - Saturdays at 8 p.m. at Hyde Park Theatre, 511 W. 43rd Street. Tickets $17-$19, Thursday nights are pay-what-you-can. www.hydeparktheatre.org
Claire Canavan is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
