After Ashley

Last night, Candace and I went to see a play one of her past coworkers (at J.Christopher's) was in, entitled After Ashley. The venue was a small backstage theatre at a larger venue called 7 Stages in the artsy indie-kid district of Atlanta, Little Five Points. We had been wanting to go see Brent in a play for a while, especially once we realized our strange coincidental connection with him (Candace knows him through work, and I kind of indirectly knew him through Chi Phi at Oglethorpe, where he was a member), but this was our first time we were able to make it out.

Anyway, I thought both the play itself and Brent's acting were really strong, despite it being what appeared to be a sort of smallish company in a city relatively unknown for theatre. The plot followed a teenager boy and his family through the trauma and drama surrounding his mother's rape and murder...the main issue being the conflict of choosing someone's post-mortem dignity over the possibility of capitalizing on it (in this case, in the form of a TV show the father ends up hosting sensationalizing victimized women).

The play was full of tough moments, unique characters, and very relevant topics (especially considering our current reality TV obsession), and all of this ended up lending to a sense that the whole production was rather fresh. Overall, a fun experience, all the more so because we got to go support a friend.