All That Glitters

Can't Buy Me Love... Or Can You?

by Curt Holman

Creative Loafing

Valhalla focuses on beauty as its own reward, whether in the form of an architectural wonder, an attractive body or a pink chenille bedspread. The relentlessly quippy playwright of such hits as I Hate Hamlet and Jeffrey, Rudnick reveals deeper ambitions in Valhalla. The play examines the fascination of many gay men with aesthetic beauty, a lifelong obsession for both Bavaria's Ludwig (Topher Payne) in the 19th century and Texas' James Avery (Matt Felten) in the 1930s and '40s. Both have consuming needs for beauty – in people and objects – even as children. In his first scene, James shoplifts a crystal swan as a kleptomaniacal 10-year-old, saying only, "I needed it."
Payne offers a droll and sympathetic portrait of Ludwig, a royal sissy who moons over Wagnerian opera, recoils at ugly servants and remains oblivious to political realities. The Ludwig track offers hilarious, Woody Allen-esque farce, and Jane Kroessing's costumes convey Ludwig's world on a shoestring budget. The James Avery storyline proves more difficult. As a young man, James pursues his desires so directly that he's almost sociopathic. He develops a romantic triangle with a handsome young jock (Greg Morris) and the high school beauty queen (Kate Graham). Graham's amusing role speaks of the responsibility and entitlement of the extremely good-looking: "Inner beauty is tricky because you can't prove it."
Valhalla commits to some weak jokes and peculiar detours under Peter Hardy's direction, including a World War II musical number, "Soldiers Need Seamen," that, despite Felten's musical chops, belongs in a farce about gays in the military. The more Ludwig and James seek transcendence, however, the more intriguing the play becomes. James pursues seemingly unattainable love while Ludwig all but bankrupts his country, putting his throne at risk to build such structures as Neuschwanstein Castle, the model for Sleeping Beauty's castle in Disneyland. In effect, both men want to live in castles in the air, but realities of their times bring them crashing to Earth to suffer fates as brutal as Shylock's.
Valhalla depicts conflicts with the materialistic world at a time when such definitions are becoming more ambiguous. In the 21st century, we live in an increasingly paperless economy, and goods such as music and other forms of entertainment exist in cyberspace, not on our shelves. I'm not sure if that makes prized ephemera more or less valuable, but shows as thought-provoking as Valhalla would be cheap at twice the price.

Swan Song

by Brad Rudy

Atlanta Theatre Buzz

In 1848, Richard Wagner writes his opera Lohengrin, creating time-honored melodies that tell the Arthurian tale of the Knight of the Swans, and his rescue of the fair Elsa.

In 1869, King Ludwig II of Bavaria, a friend to Wagner and lover of all things Lohengrin, begins construction on the magnificent Neuschwanstein (“New Swan Stone”) Castle near Hohenschwangau in Southwest Bavaria.

In the early 1930’s a fictional boy named James Avery steals a glass Swan figurine from a small town Texas Department store because he “really wanted it.”

These seemingly unconnected events form the backbone of Paul Rudnick’s new comedy, “Valhalla,” an examination of love and beauty and music and swans. And it is the opening of this year’s Essential Theatre “Power Play” Festival, an annual gathering of plays freshly written by Georgia Playwrights, or works of established playwrights that are seeing their first Southeastern productions. Mr. Rudnick has built a reputation as a “gay Neil Simon,” writing very accessible plays with gay themes (or, as in “I Hate Hamlet,” gay subtexts) as well as popular movies (such as “In & Out”). With “Valhalla,” he has written a very funny, sometimes moving piece that follows the life and adventures of King Ludwig and the fictional romances of the 20th-century James Avery. All the other characters are played with bravura quick-change ease by a company four, who often switch genders, centuries, and costumes in the space of seconds.

Although I found much to admire and enjoy in this production, I’m not sure Mr. Rudnick completely succeeds at integrating the two stories, and I’m not sure this production takes full advantage of the opportunities that are there. This is really only a vague feeling, leaving me at a loss to articulate specific shortcomings of either playwright or production team. Still, this is a funny (VERY funny) and captivating show, which actually motivated me to find out more about poor Ludwig and his life.

Ludwig, while still a Prince, finds himself isolated from others and in full training for his eventual succession to the throne. He has no one who shares his likes and dislikes, no friends, no confidants, and no desire to make the further acquaintance of any of the ludicrously “wrong”’ Princesses who are paraded before him. But one day, while in the forest, he makes the acquaintance of Princess Sophie of Austria, an equally insecure lady who shares his love for Lohengrin and his dislike for arranged royal engagements. She is also a hunchback, and Ludwig is the first person to ever make her feel beautiful. They remain the best of friends, even after Sophie discovers he’s really the Prince, even after she discovers his preference for the tenors and baritones of the local opera company. And she inspires him to follow in the footsteps of the great kings of the past, and be remembered for his buildings, buildings that bankrupt his kingdom and send him into a presumed and comforting madness.

Meanwhile, a hundred years later, James Avery is heading down the path to juvenile delinquency. He finishes High School in a reformatory and comes back home to seduce away Sally, the almost-bride (and prom queen) of his childhood conquest, Henry Lee. That she loves them both is evident, that James loves them both is equally evident. As they grow into adulthood, James and Henry Lee find themselves in the same army unit, behind German lines, hiding for their lives. Meanwhile, Sally finds herself pregnant with the child of, well, one of them.

The war takes a bitter toll, and the play ends with a bittersweet coda, which I won’t spoil for you. Let’s just say it involves a solid gold valentine-shaped reliquary that may (or may not) contain the heart of King Ludwig.

I cannot talk about this production without praising the cast. Topher Payne is Ludwig in a way I was not expecting. He has made a career of playing and writing about gay characters. Here, though, he concentrates more on making him a confused, lonely young man without the stereotypical campy mannerism we might expect. Yes, we see him preferring men to women, but we also believe his genuine affection for and friendship with Sophie. He is a fully a 19th-century aristocrat, not a 20th-century cliché. And I, for one, fully accepted his eventual embracement of madness, his obsession with Lohengrin, and his total infatuation with beauty of any kind.

Back in the 1930’s and 1940’s, Matt Felten gives James Avery a drive and burning intensity that transcends sexuality and expectation. He makes the seductions of Henry Lee and Sally equally believable and even desirable. This is a character who can only be happy indulging all his sides. Of the supporting cast, I found Kate Graham, the most impressive, and this is not intended to belittle the efforts of the others – Greg Morris (Henry Lee and others), Sunny Williams (the mother of both Ludwig and James, among others), and Alejandro Gutierrez (Ludwig's brother, his chief minister, and others). But Ms. Graham must play both the blonde Texan Sally and the Austrian brunette Sophie, sometimes in consecutive scenes. Yes, she owes a debt of gratitude to her dressers and wig-makers, but she gives both characters a sparkle and edge that are all her own -- delightful, appealing, and distinct. These (and the few other minor parts) show her to have a remarkable range that hopefully will soon be exploited by other theatres.

If the connection between the stories strains a bit, if the interactions between the characters of differing centuries sometimes seem more playwright contrivance that character-driven madness, if the energy (and humor) flag a bit in Act II, the final coda is beautiful, symbolic elegy to both stories, and a moving meditation on the nature of love and beauty.

The set is simple and stark, fully in tune with the constraints of a production in repertory, and seemingly in contrast with Ludwig's obsession with elaborate architecture and over -the-top construction. But, at the same time, it gives an elegant bridge between the centuries, and gives us the opportunity to imagine a grander castle than any set designer could conceive and build. And, on Ludwig'sascension to the throne, the lighting conspires with the simple set (and Mr. Payne’s performance) to give us a moment of transplendent glory.

King Ludwig was found dead under mysterious circumstances in 1886 in a lake outside his still not-quite-complete Neuschwanstein Castle. Following the custom of his time, his heart was not buried with his body, but kept in a gilded reliquary. This play succeeds as history never does in showing how the truth of his heart is the Swanlike beauty of Lohengrin, a Swan Song for a life striving for the eternal, a beauty capturing that timeless eternal.

Rather than the traditional “Swan Song” of eras’ ends, this is a fitting opening for what promises to be another successful Power Plays Festival.

Back and Forth

Topher Payne and Sunny Williams shine in Valhalla

by Jim Farmer

Southern Voice

WRITER PAUL RUDNICK is a truly funny man, but his projects aren’t always fail proof. Everyone remembers his “In and Out” and “Addams Family Values,” but he’s also responsible for film duds such as “Marci X” and the “The Stepford Wives” remake.

As a playwright, he’s also had mixed success. Some of his work — especially “Jeffrey” and “The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told,” are beloved. Now Atlanta has a chance to see Rudnick’s latest work, “Valhalla,” currently part of Essential Theatre’s Power Plays Fest.

Rudnick shifts between two initially dissimilar worlds, that of King Ludwig II of Bavaria (Topher Payne) and that of James Avery (Matt Felten), a fictional young boy growing up in Texas just before World War II. Pressed to marry, Ludwig finally decides to wed a humpback (Kate Graham) he really doesn’t love. Meanwhile in Texas, the bisexual James has a crush on Henry Lee Stafford (Greg Morris) but also seems fond of Sally (Graham again). James turns into a troublemaker and winds up in jail, before interrupting the marriage between Henry Lee and Sally. The two men later wind up fighting in Germany together.

THE PLAY FOLLOWS BOTH LEAD CHARACTERS, who turn out to have a lot in common. Both are misunderstood and unconventional, and also have a domineering mother (Sunny Williams in both roles).Rudnick, who is openly gay himself, is one of only a few playwrights whose plays always seem to have an unabashed gay sensibility. “Valhalla” has much gay content, and both leads seem to like men, even if Ludwig’s taste is played more ambiguously. Rudnick deserves immense credit for not writing another cookie cutter gay romantic comedy. “Valhalla” has ambition to spare, but it can lose scope. It is that rare play that would be more effective if it were simpler.

“VALHALLA” CAN LURCH back and forth wildly, and just when things are getting nutty, Rudnick throws in a bizarre musical number featuring the two soldiers.The cast, fortunately, makes the production well worth seeing. Payne’s comedic touch is on sharp display, Morris shows considerable talent, and Graham has a charming presence. Yet all the performers pale next to the dynamic Williams, who chews scenery delectably. “Valhalla” is one of the goofiest plays you’ll see this summer.

Write to Life

A young Atlanta playwright's introspective take on his bouts with cancer becomes the seed for his comedy

By Richard L. Eldredge, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

While undergoing chemotherapy in 2001, Atlanta playwright Topher Payne began writing the two-act comedy "Relations Unknown." The then-21-year-old writer and actor dealt with his health crisis by creating Chris Harrburn, an autobiographical character in "Relations" who, like Payne, had recently come out to his God-fearing Southern parents and was facing down a cancer diagnosis.
With one exception: Chris died in Act One.
"Killing myself was awesome!" says Payne, now 28, as he folds his 6-foot-2 frame into a chair in the upstairs bar at the Four Seasons hotel in Midtown.
"To write about what you're most afraid of was incredibly liberating. Killing myself taught me that you continue. To the people that matter, you continue."
Payne is now a three-time cancer survivor. The bouts with blood work, chemotherapy and hair loss have taught him not to waste time.
Through May 15, "Three by Topher," a world premiere of his latest plays —- "Above the Fold," "Don't Look at the Fat Lady" and "Perfect Arrangement" —- is being staged by the Process Theatre at Whole World Theatre in Midtown.
Later this month, "Necessary Luxuries: Notes on a Semi-Fabulous Life" (Xlibris/Random House, $19.95), a collection of his popular weekly David magazine "Maybe It's Just Me" columns, will hit stores as both an audiobook and paperback. Payne also works full time as general manager of MetroFresh restaurant in Midtown, where more than 3,800 e-mail menu subscribers eagerly await his amusing missives each morning.
Last year, Payne and his partner, Tommy Nixon, bought a house in Decatur.
While others in his peer group are still figuring out what they want to be when they grow up, Payne appears to be forever fingering the fast-forward button.
"But why isn't everyone?" he asks, taking a stab at the lime in his vodka and tonic. "I was given a gift by having my mortality presented to me at an early age. But nobody's guaranteed a long life."
Payne pauses and then adds sunnily, "I mean, people get hit by buses every day!"
To understand what experiences informed the writer as a kid it's helpful to hit the rewind button on the tape recorder he received for Christmas when he was a 6-year-old growing up in Kosciusko, Miss. Payne promptly installed the gizmo underneath the dining room table where his mother, Sheryl, and her sisters would gather to discuss current events. The pint-size playwright would transcribe the conversations and act out the scenes with his stuffed animals.
"Mama couldn't figure out how I learned words like 'hysterectomy,' " Payne says.
Adds Sheryl Payne, speaking from Kosciusko: "Even as a young boy, he could tell a story better than anyone I know. He never stopped talking. I remember telling him, 'Topher, now rest your mouth, son.' "
Kosciusko's other notable export is also a talker: Oprah Winfrey.
Cracks Payne: "If you were from Kosciusko, you would know how deliciously ironic it is to have a single black female billionaire and gay playwright as the two people to brag about. But unlike Oprah, I'm well-known for a radius of about eight blocks in Midtown."
The power of words
Technically, the reach of Payne's work extends a bit further. A production of his play "Entertaining Lesbians" was staged at the Clemente Soto-Valez Performing Arts Center in Manhattan in 2004, and his plays have graced stages in Columbus, Roswell and in Clinton, Miss.
At 10, Payne spent time with his grandmother Shirley Henderson when he visited after school to give the diabetic her insulin shot. He was all ears as neighbors would drop in for gossip sessions.
"I didn't have to watch 'Steel Magnolias,' " he says. "I was living it." (Perhaps not coincidentally, when callers ring his cellphone these days, they're greeted with the theme from "The Golden Girls.")
Later, at a self-imposed stint at a New England boarding school, Payne discovered writing at age 15. He composed an essay about his growing alienation at school and was selected to read it in front of his English class.
"I was not designed for the environment," he recalls. "Conformity has never been my strong suit. Plus, I was straight off the turnip truck. These kids [expletive] hated me. But when I finished, they applauded. I changed their minds about me. It was the first time I understood the power of my own words to change my life."
A few years later, Payne took a job in Atlanta with Kaiser Permanente's educational theater division as an actor in "Professor Bodywise and His Traveling Menagerie." The chain smoker played Nikki Teen, an enormous blue cat who instructed school kids on the perils of Pall Malls.
He also started writing plays.
A little less 'cute'
Eleven plays into his career, Payne has established himself by writing Southern-set comedies. He often arms his characters with withering one-liners but manages to retain a strong emotional core. Family dynamics fascinate him. But with "Three by Topher," he wanted to branch out a bit.
"I wanted to see if I could write something that ran the risk of not being liked," he explains. "Something that elicited a strong reaction. . . . Traditionally, people walk out of one of my plays and say, 'Darlin', that was cute.' I wanted to work a little less 'cute' with these plays. I really wanted to talk about what's going on out there."
One particularly edgy comic piece in Payne's "Above the Fold" has some audience members squirming. A catatonic, wheelchair-bound Shonda (inspired by the Terri Schiavo case and played by Atlanta actress Jo Howarth) is being prepared for a media-manipulated TV appearance by Godfrey, a flamboyant makeup artist (portrayed by actor Greg Morris).
The title of the piece: "Fruit and Vegetable."
He had workshopped "Beached Wails" (about four vacationing sisters from Kosciusko) and was planning a production of the comedy at the 14th Street Playhouse when he was first diagnosed with cancer shortly after his 21st birthday.
"I learned that cancer is a disease operating on a cellular level," Payne says. "The only thing you can control is how you react to it. Getting up every day and thinking about when you're going to die isn't much of a life."
When the Burkitt's lymphoma returned in late 2003 as a tumor in his inner ear, Payne pulled out the script for "Relations Unknown" and gave it an overhaul.
"The plays are my children," he says. "It's as close to a legacy as I have. It's important to get it right."
When "Relations Unknown" was eventually staged at Dad's Garage in 2003, the playwright's family drove in for opening night.
In a last-minute plot twist, the actor portraying Chris was in a car crash after the final dress rehearsal. The playwright had to step in and play the wise-cracking cancer patient.
"I just sat there and cried," Sheryl Payne recalls. "It was so autobiographical. Being separated from Topher when he went through treatment, I had no idea what he experienced."
Smoothing the catch in her throat, Sheryl quietly discusses the play's death scene: "I was almost hysterical. He's my baby. The 'what ifs' were right there, being acted out. My son has taught me a lot. ... When you think you couldn't love someone any more, God manages to open that door a little more. No one in the family ends a phone conversation now without telling the other person 'I love you.' "

The fat lady
Payne's writing in "Don't Look at the Fat Lady" is eliciting similar emotional responses. Written as a one-act monologue for Howarth, the play focuses on Gloria Dickey, a 600-pound Floridian who has melded with her living room couch. Payne was inspired to write the piece after reading about Gail Grinds, a 40-year-old Florida woman who died in 2004 after enduring a similar plight.
"Because of how she died, she became a Darwinism," Payne says. "But Gail Grinds was a person. I took the emotional truth of that and created Gloria. It's a way of honoring this woman's life without using her death as a punchline."
Adds Howarth: "Gloria is someone you want to know. Topher translated a sensational death into a really beautiful life."
Payne, director DeWayne Morgan and Howarth underscore the audience's initial discomfort by placing Howarth, already in her fat suit and sewn into the sofa and surrounded by snack-food wrappers, onstage when they enter the theater.
Back at the Four Seasons bar, a fresh round of drinks arrives, along with rapper Jay-Z and his bodyguards, who silently slip into place at the doorway.
The famous, the infamous and fame-seeking reality TV "stars" all serve as fodder for Payne's other new one-act, "Above the Fold."
It's a subject Payne has been thinking about ever since readers of his column in David magazine, a free Atlanta gay and lesbian weekly, began recognizing him from his photo.
"Most people who approach me are extremely nice and just want to extend a compliment," Payne says. "But I was fascinated by the ones who are a little Looney Tunes. Some people need that encounter with fame if they can't be famous themselves. It's a little alarming."
During its three-year run in David, Payne's comic and poignant columns often have taken on a confessional tone. He's dished on dating, getting dumped, dieting, even his personal lubricant preferences. But when his cancer returned for a second encore in October 2006, Payne never mentioned the "c" word in his copy.
That was intentional.
"I lived for it," Payne explains. "Every week, I had an opportunity to enter an alternate universe where I wasn't sick. I got to pretend my biggest problems were: 'I'm single! I'm fat!' The column actually got better during that period. It was the most healing thing I could have done for myself."
Adds Payne's MetroFresh boss Mitchell Anderson: "Topher has taught me how critically important a sense of humor is in life. He would come into work the day after a chemo treatment and be all smiles. He never let the cancer affect how he represented himself to the world."
'Take ownership'
In March 2007, a month after being given a clean bill of health once again, Payne met Tommy Nixon. On their third date, the columnist presented the Atlanta retail director with a notebook filled with his columns.
"I didn't want strangers to know more about me than he did," he explains. "Also, I write with humiliating candor, and I write about the people in my life. I had just gotten through cancer again. I was not about to waste my time dating someone who couldn't deal with that aspect of my life."
Nixon apparently doesn't mind his portrayal as the recurring "Preppy" character in "Maybe." He said yes when Payne proposed last Christmas. The two are planning a ceremony in May 2009.
As he has tackled drafts of his new plays and book galleys in his study over the past few months, Payne has quietly observed the circle of life taking place on his kudzu-draped window sill where birds built a nest and recently hatched babies.
A framed autographed photo of Faye Dunaway in full over-the-top, arched-eyebrow glory as Joan Crawford in "Mommie Dearest" looks on, silently judging. Payne bought the rarity off eBay for $60.
Dunaway stopped signing the photos after the 1981 film was released, and audiences turned the biopic into an unintended camp classic. Dunaway has famously disassociated herself from the role.
The autograph serves as a life lesson for Payne.
"Take ownership of every decision you make in life," he says. "What's wrong with owning your crap? You don't get to walk away from it. It becomes a part of you. Everything I've learned as a writer goes back to discovering that our humanity lies in our flaws. Own the good and the bad. We would all be a little better off if we lived under those terms."
Payne drains his second vodka and tonic and contemplates a Marlboro Light.
He laughs and adds: "Well, within reason."

IN TOPHER PAYNE'S OWN WORDS
From the upcoming book "Necessary Luxuries," a collection of his columns from David Magazine
I use fancy laundry stuff. The label says it's "Aromatherapeutic," which I'm not sure is even a real word. ... What I am sure of is that it smells like geraniums, and one teeny tiny bottle costs three times more than a box of Gain. It might not even work as well as regular laundry soap. I have no idea. I do not care. Buying it makes me feel deliciously overindulgent, like a pampered Morningside housewife.
Maybe it's just me, but there are certain things, regardless of financial circumstance, that I will not skimp on in life. If I can't afford real Oreos, I will go without, not make do with "Kroger Chocolate Sandwich Cookies." I'll eat peanut butter and jelly for a week before I buy the cheap cigarettes. There may be nothing to drink in my house but water and vodka, but you can rest assured that vodka will be delicious, incomparable 3 Soy Vodka.
When times are tough, it never even crosses my mind to drop my gym membership, or my brunches with Slutty Mandy, or God forbid, my hairdresser. That finance guru I see on TV all the time, Suze Orman, would have an aneurysm if she saw our bank statements.
We are the fabulous poor. ...
From the one-act play "Don't Look at the Fat Lady"
Gloria: "Syndicated programs are so wonderful, because when you see one you already saw, it's like hearing your best friend tell someone a story you already know. It's still funny, but now you're in on the joke. Sometimes I see 'Friends' on 36, and Monica and Chandler will be married wanting a baby, and then I'll see it on 17, and she'll still be dating Tom Selleck, and I'll think, 'Oh, honey, I know what's gonna happen!' I can see it all: Rachel and Ross are going to have a baby. ... Anna Nicole will die, and that makes me sad because even though she was crazy as a pig in heat, when she first came around they said she was pretty, even though she was the same size I was in high school. I was pretty, too, then. Not because I was thinner, just because I was young. I think it's so unfair that you don't know you were beautiful until later, and you think, what would I have been, if I'd known it when I needed to?"
From his Metrofresh menu e-mails
Friday, November 23, 2007
Hey y'all, it's Topher. So yesterday, I made Thanksgiving dinner. I had a 22-pound Butterball that would not defrost, despite my best efforts. I cooked it for ages, and it was still stone cold in the middle. ... So, three hours before people were scheduled to arrive, while Sweet Tommy was raking the back yard, I told him I had to go to the grocery for butter. Then I pulled that dang bird out of the oven, threw it in a trash bag, and tossed it in the passenger seat of the car. The two of us went to Kroger, I bought a pre-cooked turkey, then hurled the half-frozen bird into a nearby dumpster, made the switch at the house, and no one was any the wiser. Everyone was very complimentary. So next year, I'm skipping that first part and going straight to step two, which involves a lot less work. I'm not very domestic, I'm discovering. But I am creative in a pinch.

Playwright Imagines Life Beyond the Headlines

by Jim Farmer, Southern Voice

ATLANTA PLAYWRIGHT TOPHER PAYNE never expected it. Neither did Process Theatre artistic director DeWayne Morgan. But starting next week, the Process Theatre Company presents the “3 by Topher” Play Festival, a trio of world premieres penned by Payne. According to Morgan, the company mounts a festival each spring, and the timing was perfect, but it wasn’t planned.

“It wasn’t that we were looking to do a play festival of Topher’s work, but he had three plays written at the time,” he says.

“The Perfect Arrangement” is the gayest of the trio. In it, state department workers who have just helped get rid of communists are asked to now take care of “deviants” — in other words, homosexuals. What no one knows is that two of the employees are gay themselves, with marriages to cover their secret.

Payne got the inspiration from the Lavender Scare, which began in 1950 when 190 gay employees were fired from the government for security reasons.

“I’d never heard of it, and I consider myself reasonably savvy,” Payne says. “It seemed so ripe for a story. I did research, watching a lot of ‘50s sitcoms, getting that vocabulary down.”

“ABOVE THE FOLD,” WHICH PAYNE describes as “dark and twisted and fabulous,” also contains gay content. “It’s about people on the periphery of news events no one ever bothered to interview,” he says. “They are hiding or ignored.”

Among the characters are two lesbian co-workers of a young man who later goes on a high school killing spree. Others include the gay makeup artist for a young woman in a coma about to make her TV debut; a woman who loses a beauty pageant; and a young man who has kept quiet about his relationship with a pop star.

Originally, “Above the Fold” was supposed to premiere in New York last year at a theater Payne tactfully refuses to name. According to Payne, the company loved the script and was anxious to produce it, but a donor who was a graduate of Virginia Tech felt uncomfortable with the shooter piece, claiming it was too sympathetic to the killer.

The theater wanted to cut that segment, but Payne balked and decided he would rather have it produced elsewhere. “These people do horrible things, but they are people,” Payne says. “Where did it come from? How do we understand that? I felt that scene drove the whole point home of what it was trying to communicate. I didn’t want to lose that.”

Besides directing “Above the Fold” and “Don’t Look at the Fat Lady,” Morgan is appearing in “The Perfect Arrangement.” He has long been a fan of Payne’s work.

“I think Topher’s main gift is that he is able to make his characters and their words sound so real,” Morgan says.

THE FINAL SHOW is the comedy-drama “Don’t Look at the Fat Lady,” which is loosely based on the real life story of Gail Grinds, a 40-year-old woman who was confined to a sofa for two to five years, weighed 600 pounds and whose skin was literally stuck to the sofa. She died just after emergency workers rescued her.

“Her whole life was reduced to a punchline, but she had a life,” Payne says. “I felt she deserved better. When I see someone who is overweight, [the tendency] is to say ‘how can you do that to yourself.’ It makes us look at our own prejudices towards fat people. I come from Mississippi, the fattest state in the country. We work hard to make fat people invisible,” he says.

Payne is also a weekly columnist for David Atlanta Magazine, a sister publication to Southern Voice.

Return of the Sissies

By Rob Beck, Southern Voice

THERE’S TRUTH IN THE old adage that there’s never too much of a good thing. Note the Process Theatre's presentation of the local return run of Del Shores’ “Southern Baptist Sissies,” in repertory with Shores’ cult classic “Sordid Lives,” less than six months after “Sissies” concluded its initial Atlanta run in May.The shows kick off on Oct. 3 at Whole World Theater’s Third Space.

The overlapping casts feature most of the original “Sissies” cast, with “Sordid Lives” director and “Sissies” co-director DeWayne Morgan stepping in to fill the role of the Preacher. “Sissies,” co-directed by Morgan and Barbara Cole Uterhardt, tells the story of four boys growing up in a small southern town and coming to terms with their sexual orientation. “Sordid Lives” recounts a Texas family’s misguided but hilarious efforts to get through the funeral of its recently deceased matriarch.

Morgan says both “Sissies” and “Sordid Lives” are such hits with gay audiences — as indicated by the sold-out final three weeks of the initial run of “Sissies” in Atlanta — because Shores’ work resonates with experiences and people familiar to Southern gay men and lesbians.

“Del wrote about who he was growing up in Texas, and Atlanta, while not Texas, is Southern. A lot of the stigmas that he experienced there, gay people experience here,” Morgan says. “Plus, he writes Southern so well, in terms of the comedy and the characters and people. Some of the characters you see in ‘Sordid Lives,’ like Sissy, Latrelle, and Lavonda, are women that you know. When they walk in and start talking, you realize you knew them growing up or you had an aunt who was like that. He captures them so well.”

Topher Payne, who reprises his “Sissies” role as Mark Fuller, concurs that audiences relate to the stories on a personal level, which keeps them coming back for more.“Atlanta is made up so much of a community of transplants,” he says. “You think of all the people that moved to Atlanta from smaller towns throughout the South, and that’s why the experience of seeing the show for so many people speaks to their personal history. It validates the choices that we made, and kind of honors that that sense of community happens a lot earlier in life than we’re often willing to admit.”

For his part as the playwright, Shores is thrilled to hear about the return of his plays to Atlanta, though he admits to surprise at the impact of “Sissies,” the tear-jerking and personal, yet still funny, cousin of the raucous “Sordid Lives.”

“I felt like I was just telling my story,” he says. “I soon found out that I was telling a lot of gay men’s stories, as well as those of gay women and beyond. My producing partner, Sharon Lane, who is no longer with us, always said it was about anybody that felt different, and I think that’s why it really resonated with so many people.”

Payne looks forward to the chance to allow more people to see “Sissies,” which was hard to get into at the end of its run. “We were hoping to provide an opportunity for anybody who wants to see the show,” he says. “Well, dammit, we’ll let you see it.”

FANS OF BOTH PLAYS can look forward to the same trademark heart and humor of previous runs, but with marked improvements, according to cast and crew. Most notable is the addition of Juanita, the wisecracking barfly who was created for the “Sordid Lives” film in 2000 and was much missed by audiences during the play’s 2004 Atlanta production.

“This version has Juanita in it,” Morgan says. “That’s the one thing that is going to delight the audiences, actually getting to see that character.”

Payne is excited about the chance for the cast and crew to refine the production as a whole.

“To be able to come back and say, ‘Okay, let’s try it again,’ is exciting,” he says. “So much of the rehearsal process is taken up by the business of doing theater: learning the blocking, learning the lines, getting to know the cast. We already have that. We have been able to delve deeper into the characters and what the playwright wanted to express, so that’s been a really unique experience.”

Morgan says that at first, the prospect of taking on both plays at the same time was daunting. But the fact that “Sissies” was done so recently, combined with the efforts of Uterhardt as co-director, made the process smoother than expected.

“We’ve saved everything,” he says. “It’s going to be a little different, because we’ve kept the same blocking, and Barbara’s just tweaking the show, making any changes from last year.”

Payne welcomes the infusion of new blood to the production.“[Morgan and Uterhardt] are kind of taking what DeWayne originally did with the show and honoring that, but having a fresh set of eyes on it has kind of challenged us all,” he says. “A different director will say, ‘Let’s look at it this way,’ and then you suddenly explode with ideas.”

FANS OF THE shows tend to overlap, but comes with its own distinct feel. “Sordid Lives” tends towards non-stop “rip-roaring” humor, according to Morgan, and “Sissies,” while not without its funny moments, leans to the introspective.

“The thing about ‘Sissies’ is it makes you think about how you feel about yourself and accepting yourself for who you are,” Morgan says.

Shores says that “Sissies” is ultimately about the various paths in life he ended up taking along with his characters.

“There’s a scene [in ‘Sissies’] where Mark’s talking to TJ, who was once the love of his life, and he says, ‘I'm going on a journey. A quest,’” Shores says. “That’s what happened with me writing it: I went on a journey to try and find some answers for me, and they’re not all there yet. That’s the way life is. It’s about a journey.”

Through the Years

Process Theatre stages decades of four gay men's lives with Baptist roots

by Jim Farmer

Southern Voice

If you thought growing up gay was hard on its own merits, try growing up gay in the Baptist Church. That’s the dilemma in Process Theatre’s “Southern Baptist Sissies,” now playing at Whole World Theatre.

The latest play by Del Shores (“Sordid Lives”) follows four men over a few decades after their eventual realization that they might be gay. The main character is Mark Lee Fuller (Topher Payne), who in his teen years develops a crush on T.J. (Matt Sutter). T.J. shares the feelings, but he can’t handle the situation and decides to start dating women. The confident Benny (Greg Morris) becomes a drag queen named Iona Traylor. Andrew (Marcelo Banderas) is the most introspective of the group — and the one most racked with guilt.

“Sissies” flip flops between the men’s stories and those of two barflies who meet and form a friendship. Peanut (George Deavours) is a wisecracking middle-aged gay man who befriends Odette (Jo Howarth), a saucy redhead. Shores’ “Sissies” has its share of patented one-liners, but it ultimately offers more depth and emotion than the popular but lightweight “Sordid Lives.”

And this production is also very well played. Payne handles his lead role easily, going through some tricky emotional material. Payne is matched by Banderas and newcomer Sutter. Banderas’ Andrew is the saddest of the characters, and the actor is able to convey a world of pain in his eyes. Sutter convincingly tries to hide his character’s true self. In a stock role, Deavours also brings energy to “Sissies.”

Probably the best performance is that of Greg Morris. He is really the only one of the four main characters who seems to age at all. At first, he is the kid singing in the choir. A number of years later, he is a fiercely independent grown-up, comfortable in his own shoes.

Process Theatre artistic director DeWayne Morgan makes the backdrop of the church a believable, scary world. He is not afraid to be erotic. A sequence where two of the characters sexually interact while a preacher is mid-sermon is pretty darn steamy.

Perhaps most surprisingly, “Southern Baptist Sissies” proves to be a bleak, cynical piece of work. It features vivid characters dealing with gay issues, yet in the end, it seems unfairly grim, almost retro in its outlook. The show may make for powerful theater, but is this progress?

It’s always easy to cut The Process Theatre a little slack, since they are one of the only troupes in town to go after gay material with such fervor on a regular basis. This is a well-written play that deals impressively and honestly with the pressures of gays and the church. It’s truly worth seeing.