Not 'Bad' at All

Three plays shown together in an uncommon structure show strong wit, gay sensibility, and a maturation of local playwright’s talent.

by Jim Farmer, Southern Voice

Process Theatre’s “Bad Mama,” written by local gay playwright Topher Payne, takes motherhood to the extreme. A trio of sketches about the lengths some maternal figures go to for their young, the show is often fresh and funny.
“Bad Mama” opens with “Letters From Home,” which contains three short segments. The first, entitled “What Were You Expecting,” stars Marcie Millard as Shelley, a pregnant mom living in New Jersey who is convinced her new son is going to be a gay, even pulling out a rainbow flag in anticipation.
“The Groom’s Cake” finds a protective mother (Frankie Earle) creating chaos for her son as he is about to get married. Finding fault in all aspects of the wedding, including the bride and cake, she eventually takes a journey that lands her in jail.
In “Wish You Were Here,” a couple breaks up when the father leaves the mother and takes a much-younger male lover. The two argue over what is good for their daughter and try to gain her favor.
Each part of “Letters From Home” is persuasively performed.

Payne debuted the second “Bad Mama” sketch, “Entertaining Lesbians,” off-off-Broadway at the 2004 Manhattan Fall Collection Festival. In it, Rowena (Millard) and Tad (Larry Davis) want to get their daughter into a prestigious school. To gain favor, Rowena invites a lesbian couple with a kid in the school to their home.
Worried that the women won’t think they are cool, Rowena concocts a plan. She makes her African-American cook her best friend for the evening. The plan goes haywire when their daughter is kidnapped and Rowena gets a surprise knock at the door from her trailer trash mother. The lesbians have a secret of their own.

The sharpest skit in “Bad Mama” is “A Lifetime Original Movie Starring Judith Light.” The fictional TV movie is called “Her Moment of Truth in a Crisis: What is Happening to My Life? The Karen Hirshberger-Dittmeyer Story.”
Jane Bass stars as television actress Light, portraying a housewife whose husband (Paine Calabro playing John Stamos) is a serial killer, daughter (Rachel Sorsa as Hilary Duff) becomes a prostitute, and son (Larry Davis as one of the Culkin brothers) is physically abusive. Davis also plays “Facts of Life” alum Nancy McKeon as a butch female cop. Adding to her TV-movie plight, Light’s character gets an un-curable female disease when her breast implant fails.
The sketch is cleverly written, poking fun at the melodramatic twists of the genre. Bass sets just the right tone here, taking the material seriously enough but clearly in on the joke.
...The performers in “Bad Mama” are collectively a witty bunch. Millard, just off a run of Theater Gael’s “Dancing at Lughnasa,” has a comic flair that is well-suited to the material. Other standouts include Bass and Sorsa.
...The overall production is quite humorous and shows a sharpening of the playwright’s talents over past works.

Mama's Boy

Mommy dearests give birth to absurdist comedy in Bad Mama, an evening of short plays by Topher Payne opening Feb. 24 in the Process Theatre's New Play Rep at Whole World Theatre's Third Space.

by Curt Holman, Creative Loafing

Comprised of the dinner party farce "Entertaining Lesbians," the TV parody "A Lifetime Original Movie Starring Judith Light," and three monologues under the title "Letters from Home," Bad Mama takes parenting to its most absurd extremes. Having celebrated Southern women with his previous play, Beached Wails, the 25-year-old actor/playwright describes how he pokes fun at motherhood and the media in Bad Mama.

Creative Loafing: What does Bad Mama say about motherhood?
Payne: In all the plays, the mothers desire to be in better situations, and they see their children as the avenue to that, so everybody wins. It's not the theory but the practice in which things fall apart. In "Entertaining Lesbians," a straight white woman does everything she can to blend into "diverse" society to get her 4-year-old in a good pre-school. The pregnant mom in the monologue "What Are You Expecting" wants to raise her son to be a "gay best friend," like the ones she's seen on television. But every mama in the show starts out with the best intentions.

Do any of them resemble your own mother?
She'd probably be offended to know this, but my own mother's probably most like Ruth in the monologue "The Groom's Cake." They're both Mississippi mothers who never lose their poise, but Ruth goes from being inconvenienced by people at her son's wedding to actually eliminating them.

"A Lifetime Original Movie Starring Judith Light" features characters written to be played in imitation of TV actors like Judith Light and John Stamos. How do you and the cast handle that?
I watched about 50 Lifetime movies to prepare for it, and they have amazingly precise structures. I picked the famous actors not because they're bad, but because whenever they're in material like Lifetime movies, you can see the autopilot switch on, which I thought was beautiful. Each cast member is encouraged to study the performer they're playing, as if, say, Shari Belafonte sat down and said, 'This is the best script I've ever read!' and gave it her all.

Best Bets: Eula Mae's

by Collin Kelley, Atlanta Intown Magazine

I was delighted to see that a revival of Eula Mae's Beauty, Bait, and Tackle will be staged this month at Onstage Atlanta. Many moons ago (okay, over a decade), I was acting in a play running in repertory with one of the first incarnations of the show created by Frank Blocker and Chuck Richards. Frank and Chuck were playing all the characters (mostly female, and these guys do not make pretty ladies, trust me) and it was a riot. Since then, the comedy/musical/drag show has garnered acclaim from an off-Broadway run.
This outing, Chuck and Frank have turned the show over to other actors, including Topher Payne, who nearly stole the show in last year's The Santaland Diaries at Horizon.

No Payne, No Gain

by Brian Suber, David Atlanta Magazine

Theater dervish Topher Payne discusses his latest stage creation, the challenges of comedy, and Joan Crawford worship.

TOPHER PAYNE HAS DONE MORE in his early 20s than most people twice his age. This Renaissance man lists actor, playwright, author, and coffee-slinger among his many credits. We caught up with Payne between rehearsals for his latest role in Eula Mae's Beauty, Bait, and Tackle, writing a musical, launching a play in New York, penning a book, and hawking coffee at Outwrite Bookstore and Coffeehouse.

So, what brought you to Atlanta?
I was born in Mississippi and went to school in Connecticut and California. Later, I toured with a children's theater production of a puppet show. I was supposed to be in Atlanta for ten months. That was five years ago. This is the longest I've been in one place since I was 12 years old, and Atlanta is a great place to call home.

When did the acting bug first bite?
I was doing church plays when I was four. My first role was a sparrow, I had one line and I forgot it. I auditioned for The Client (the 1994 film role went to Brad Renfro) when I was 12 or 13 and haven't looked back since.

And now you play several roles, including women, in Eula Mae's Beauty, Bait, and Tackle. How did you prepare?
Carefully. I didn't want to play the character as a man in drag but as a woman. One of the characters I play is a mother in her 40s whose life has been for shit. A lot of playing the roles is a matter of logistics. I have to tap dance in high heels and deal with the weight of boobs. It's real eye-opening experience and completely different from anything I've ever done.

Eula Mae's sounds like a hoot. What will people see?
There are actually two stories going on: The first is Eula Mae, a rodeo rider who's been pursued by the same man for years. Every year he proposes, and every year she says "no." Then something happens that makes her think maybe she should accept the proposal. The second story is about Rita Mae, who is competing in the Miss Alabama Pageant for the ninth consecutive time. She is bound and determined to win, but every year she loses, and this is her last qualifying year. The great thing about the show is that three people play all the characters.

What did you learn from playing Rita Mae?
Rita Mae is by far the most optimistic character I've ever played. In a swimsuit competition, this woman would never have a chance of winning, but she has this dream and all she can control is the energy and effort she puts into it. I am very goal-oriented and have very clear steps toward what I want. With Rita Mae, what she gains has little to do with wins or losses, just the attempt.

Which is harder, comedy or drama?
For me, comedy. With drama, you pour your heart out on the stage and you don't know how the audience felt until curtain call. With comedy, you have to sell it right there immediately, and when you don't get that response there can be real terror.

Where can we see you next?
I will probably audition for five shows next year and will be blessed if I get one. (Laughs) I'm also working on a new play, Christina Darling, that is Mommie Dearest from Joan Crawford's point of view. There's a new book I'm working on with my sister called Cinema Shindig, on how to throw the ultimate movie party. We're having a lot of fun doing it, and I'm getting to know my sister as an adult in the process. Also I have my first show opening in New York in November as part of The Fall Collection Series.

Wait. Joan Crawford?
(Laughs) I have had two role models: My father and Joan Crawford. There's a common theme there, personal happiness as an ultimate goal. After working for 25 years, my father quit and went with my mother after the life he was supposed to be living. He never would have found happiness if he had not taken the risk. With Joan, it was a search for happiness that she never found. But you gotta look.

As an actor, what's your dream role?
Now I'm writing so much that I only do one or two shows per year, and try out for roles where I feel I can bring something new. For me, the greatest roles are not the typical Hamlet or Mercutio; I've seen that. I guess because I am the most uncoordinated human being- I'm 6'2" and move around like someone learning to walk- my dream would be to lead a show-stopping song and dance performance. But I can't carry a tune in a bucket.

Atlanta Burning

People On the Rise in the Atlanta Arts Scene
2004 Atlanta Pride Guide

"...the strong willed Scarlett O' Hara types who prove the term "Southern Belle" can apply both to women and men. Atlanta's red-hot gay and lesbian community can always be counted on to move forward as keepers of the flame".

"TOPHER PAYNE. His first play, Beached Wails, is currently being produced around the Southeast. His next work, Christina Darling, (a retelling of Mommie Dearest from beleaguered Joan's perspective) is in workshops with the Process Theatre Company. Not bad for someone under 25."

Relations Unknown

Review by Wendell Brock, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Topher Payne's semi-autobiographical play traipses out high heels and wigs and plenty of references to the epicenter of gay life in Atlanta -- the corner of 10th Street and Piedmont Avenue. In the tradition of Armistead Maupin's "Tales of the City," the Process Theatre world premiere documents an incestuous circle of gay and straight friends who are transformed by love, death, Harry Potter and sperm-bank visits.
While the plot twists can be improbable and the emotions maudlin, the play buzzes along on the energy of Payne's crackling dialogue and loopy characterizations. Narissa (Cherise Jefferson) used to date Owen (Larry Davis), who is now the partner of Chris (Joshua Howland), who's dying of cancer and whose former boyfriend Shep (Dan Balmer) is HIV-positive. Into the chaos steps confused researcher Ms. Eckles (the delightful Marcie Millard), Chris' Mississippi mama, Dorothy Jean (Betty Mitchell), handsome hustler Cliff (Theroun Patterson) and an offstage drag queen named Reba McFlatTire. On the night we saw the show, Payne substituted for an injured Howland. His naturalistic performance merged with the facts of his life in moments of dark comic poignancy. At 23, this playwright seems wise beyond his years.

True Fake

"Credeaux Canvas"

Review by Curt Holman, Creative Loafing

You can almost feel Atlanta Classical Theatre's delight in decorating the set of The Credeaux Canvas. Keith Bunin's comedy-drama takes place in the tiny attic apartment of impoverished New Yorkers, and every detail is perfect: the hot plate, the stacks of empty pizza boxes, the arty postcards over the unmade bed, the rec room wall paneling.
Canvas finds humor in the plight of poor artists: "Did you get a clean glass from the tub?" But it also shows keen insights into the emotional risks of devotion, whether to art or to other people.
Jamie (Theroun Patterson), the penniless son of an art dealer, comes up with a get-rich quick scheme: to have his art-school roommate Winston (Topher Payne) paint an original work in the style of Jean-Paul Credeaux, a long-dead (and fictional) painter sure to be the next big thing. Jamie will pass the forgery off as a "discovery" to a credulous art collector (Michele McCullough).
What complicates the play isn't Jamie and Winston's fraud, but their friendship, especially when Jamie suggests that his girlfriend Amelia (Kimberly Jurgen) be the model. The tension in the nude posing scene is both erotic and comic, especially when Winston offers to make her more comfortable by removing his clothes. But as Amelia quizzes Winston about his work and his love life, the artist begins to feel "revealed." The scene has an intriguing dynamic of exposure and intimacy, although admittedly the talk would be less interesting if the actors were fully dressed.
Payne seems to play most of his roles in the same mild-mannered style, but it's a rewarding choice for Winston. By playing the part as sheltered and tentative, Payne makes the character seem unsure of his own feelings, as if he's not as remote as he'd like to be. The Credeaux Canvas pushes the humor a little hard but proves a surprisingly poignant drama, with Winston, who avoids emotional entanglements, turning his own self-portrait into a still life.