Atlanta

What the reviewers said about
Atlanta

David O'brien from The Barefoot Review said:
Atlanta is very finely tuned, extremely emotive, delicately balanced writing by Joanna Murray-Smith. An exceptional cast is needed to play the extraordinary range of spirit, sensitivity, love and pain Murray-Smith explores through a group of friends and their interrelationships.
Director Joh Hartog has the exceptional cast. Hartog has fashioned from them a production reaching to the very depths of human frailty, hope, passion love and confusion of the purest white hot honesty without a false note played. It flows with a hypnotising ease, spun out from from Atlanta’s linking monologues and thoughtful rumination.

Pat. H. Wilson from Glam Adelaide said:
The overall worth of this play is in Murray-Smith’s poetic polemic examining contemporary values, and in Karen Burns’ superb performance.  
Both are worth the price.
The other actor who equals Burns in strength, emotional and vocal clarity, and sheer enabling force, is Adam Carter.  His character, Alex, has a close but complex relationship with Atlanta, and Carter’s broad range of nuanced acting skills help to illuminate many of Murray-Smith’s social and emotional questions.  

Tony Knight from Stage Whispers said:
Is this production worth seeing, and paying the price of admission? Absolutely yes! It is by Joanna Murray-Smith, one of Australia’s best contemporary playwrights. Furthermore, this production has been excellently produced and directed by noted Adelaide theatre artist Joh Hartog. The production is stylish, well paced, beautifully lit, and seamless in the presentation of the respective scenes and complicated narrative.

Maggie Wood from Adelaide Theatre Guide said
Karen Burns plays Atlanta, alternating between being involved with the action and breaking the fourth wall to expose information and converse with the audience. Burns manages the twists and turns of the script well and delivers a confused, fragile, yet ultimately strong Atlanta.

Gillian Hunter from 3D radio
Your production of Atlanta is terrific, will give it a good rap tonight, congrats to you all. 

John Ovenden from Hills Weekender Herald
”Atlanta”, Bakehouse Theatre’s latest drama unites Joanna Murray-Smith’s incisive writing, Director Joh Hartog’s expert eye and six extremely energetic and enthusiastic young actors.

Atlanta probes the nuances of friendship and the ways we deal with loss in a witty and absorbing manner. The central character Atlanta is named after the Nasa spacecraft orbiting Perth at the moment of her conception. She stands out from her educated, confident friends through her awareness of a deeper and darker side of life. Sensing this awareness, her friends are stirred in different ways, particularly after Atlanta’s death. Atlanta is an imaginative play which weaves together the subconscious world of dreams with that of everyday life.