Arts Review

The Atheist

Hyde Park Theatre,

511 W. 43rd, 479-7529, www.hydeparktheatre.org

Through March 13

Running time: 1 hr., 45 min.

Augustine Early is a lying bastard. Augustine Early is a duplicitous schemer with no scruples. To call the man Machiavellian would be a massive understatement. Augustine Early is a mother-punching, headline-grabbing fame hound. And, yes, he is an atheist. And you will love him for all of it.

Hyde Park Theatre's The Atheist tells the tale of Augustine Early – or, rather, tells the tale of Augustine Early telling his own tale. Just off the lip of the stage is a digital camera, which Early turns on before beginning his life story. And as Early settles behind his desk, the audience sees Early in person delivering to the camera and – above Early, stage right – the digital output of Early's recording. Picture in picture.

The intended effect seems clear: Early isn't telling his life story. He's telling his story to a camera. The story we tell ourselves is mired in our truth and consciousness, but how and why we represent that to others, well, Krapp's Last Tape this is not. In Camus' The Fall, the narrator tells his own tale questioning his moral turpitude to a stranger, but ultimately he is found to be an unreliable narrator. So, too, with Early, who is wholly conscious of how the delivery and unraveling of his tale will be consumed by his audience.

To what extent does this matter? We want the stories we hear to be true. The more consequence an action has, the more important it is. And Augustine Early's story is damn good. HPT Artistic Director Ken Webster has always been able to pick a good script, and playwright Ronan Noone's tale of repressed emotions and small-town politics blown to smithereens by one conniving reporter is captivating from start to finish. Early's character reminds me of Neil Patrick Harris' skirt-chasing rapscallion on the sitcom How I Met Your Mother minus the network sheen; he says a lot of offensive things along the lines of "caught up in snatch world" and "poor little rape chick," yet you'd still want him as your friend, trading outrageous stories and shots at the bar.

What can I say about Joey Hood, who plays Early in this one-man show? To call him natural is too simple. To call him effortless belies how much work he's put into the role. Let me put it this way: I never noticed Hood's acting. He never did anything so "actor-y" that I remembered his actions instead of his character's. He was a pure conduit for the play. Let me also say this: Everything Hood did was awesome. While his Augustine Early is charismatic and wholly engaging, every other character he embodies in the telling of his tale is also rich and enjoyable. Everything he needs to be and nothing more – what else can I say about Joey Hood?

Toward the end of his story, Early reveals to the audience: "It takes balls to do what I do. But you could do it, too." Augustine Early is a bastard, but part of his perverse appeal comes from his rags-to-riches tale. We want his story to be true. We want to know the world can be taken by storm, by us, if need be. The Atheist can be as thought-provoking as you want it to be, but – as its narrator and playwright both know – it wins over audiences by being damn entertaining.