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By Kent Larsen
LDS Playwright's 'Joyful Noise' Opens In Atlanta
ATLANTA, GEORGIA -- Playwright Tim Slover's account of the creation and
first performance of George Frideric Handel's masterwork, "The Messiah" has
opened in a new production in Atlanta, for a Christmas-time four-week run at
the 14th Street Playhouse. The play opened off-Broadway in New York City
last May to positive reviews.
Slover told the Atlanta Journal and Constitution that he got a bit of a
shock when he researched the creation of the oratorio. "Rather than the
oratorio growing out of recent successes, it sprang from [Handel's] failures
-- failures in the theater, failures as a composer, as a person." He found a
Handel that was overcoming cultural and creative obstacles, and discovered
that "The Messiah" itself had to overcome obstacles, in the form of a Bishop
who opposed the production.
These difficulties lead to what Slover calls his favorite characteristic in
the play, "Someone once said the angels envy us two things, our ability to
forgive and our ability to repent. In the play, every one of the characters
must do one or the other, and some do both."
This performance of "Joyful Noise" is somewhat unique because of its use of
live choruses to supplement the canned music in the play. Fourteen different
local church choirs will participate, a different group each night of the run.
Source:
New looks at Handel's 'Messiah'
Atlanta Journal-Constitution 25Nov00 A2
By Pierre Ruhe: Staff
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