As journalists go, Augustine Early is an unrepentant reprobate, a bottom-feeder who ferociously chases celebrity, particularly if it means the advancement of his own career.
By all rights, he should be the kind of guy you would hate to spend time with, but in "The Atheist," Ronan Noone's engrossing solo play, he exerts a kind of scorpion-like charm. Much of that charm is due to the witty, compelling performance of Campbell Scott, whose sly smile hides, at least for a while, the sting of Early's dangerous ambition.
"The Atheist," which opened Sunday at off-Broadway's Barrow Street Theatre, is an entertaining morality tale, so there is a price to be paid for all that ambition, but only after careers and lives have been destroyed.
This tabloid journalist tells his own story, sitting behind a desk or pacing about the tiny Barrow Street stage, and talking to a video camera about his rise and fall. A trailer-trash youth out of Kansas, Early has a fierce desire to become famous, a desire that flowered after he lost his faith in God and, in a spasm of self-help, "took control of my destiny."
Video actually plays a big part in the man's sleazy climb to fame: incriminating sex tapes that lead to the downfall of a congressman, a burgeoning acting career for the young woman (Early's girlfriend, no less) caught on tape and Early's own involvement with the politician's religious wife.
Early breaks the story of the tapes and rides a series of exclusives to ever-increasing notoriety and monetary reward.
Noone's writing has a rhythmic quality, call it a staccato lilt, that Scott captures with complete assurance. Nattily dressed in a light suit and tie, the actor resembles a fast-talking salesman, sort of a darker, nastier version of Professor Harold Hill of "Music Man" fame. And director Justin Waldman never lets the pace of the evening slacken, despite the play's two acts.
There are some unlikely aspects to "The Atheist," particularly Early's rapid journalistic rise and the ease with which his newspaper editors _ usually a most skeptical lot _ let him dictate how his stories will be presented.
And Early's love of newspapers is almost quaint. One would think he might be a little more techno-savvy. Not much is made in the play about what happens to his stories on the Web, which, these days, has an even more voracious appetite for the scandal the reporter wants to peddle.
Maybe Noone should do a little revising to accommodate the Internet and have his antihero start blogging. Doesn't "The Atheist 2.0" sound like the perfect title?
