Bill W. and Dr. Bob: rehearsal photos

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Rehearsal photos courtesy of Steven Ross.

Seeing ‘The God of Hell’

Birmingham Weekly July 17, 2008
Cover Story
by Glenny Brock

City Equity Theatre takes the next step

In the oh-so-Oklahoma atmosphere that has comprised Birmingham’s theatre scene during so much of recent memory, a minor Sam Shepard play is a major event. But the playwright’s cultural standing isn’t really what makes the City Equity Theatre production of The God of Hell noteworthy so much as the radioactive politics that permeate the script.

The show, which opens Thursday, July 17, at the Alabama School of Fine Arts, is the second Shepard outing for the company this summer, a follow-up to last month’s True West. No doubt the company’s founding directors, Jonathan Fuller and Alan Gardner, were conscious of the powerful, one-two punch effect these back-to-back productions would have. True West was an admirable warm-up. The God of Hell, under the direction of Marlene Johnson, is a clear triumph.