The Atheist (play) - Plot

Plot

The Atheist is a satirical play about catching the perfect front-page headline, whatever the cost. The play follows the story of a cynical US news reporter, clawing his way up the journalistic hierarchy from trailer trash roots to notoriety and celebrity.

Central character Augustine Early drinks Bourbon and recounts his story like a "how to get famous quick" help book. He is both revolting and charismatic - a cartoon take on the tabloid journalist. Augustine Early self-divulges his story of how he perverted the justice system and preyed on a vulnerable politician in his amoral quest for fame.

As theatre critic Natasha Tripney explains:

Early is an antihero par excellence, an amusing guide through Ronan Noone's skillfully written world of American tabloid-hackery, sex scandals and trailer parks. His dark-hearted monologue is an occasionally filthy, but more importantly, in places it's laugh-out-loud funny; the writing is sharp and novelistic, the characters skillfully sketched. Early's quest for journalistic gold (and perhaps, just perhaps, a sliver of redemption) sees him encounter a wannabe actress whose tastes in the bedroom tend towards the energetic, a church-going society wife, a rapist and an English newspaper editor.

Read more about this topic:  The Atheist (play)

Famous quotes containing the word plot:

    But, when to Sin our byast Nature leans,
    The careful Devil is still at hand with means;
    And providently Pimps for ill desires:
    The Good Old Cause, reviv’d, a Plot requires,
    Plots, true or false, are necessary things,
    To raise up Common-wealths and ruine Kings.
    John Dryden (1631–1700)

    Those blessed structures, plot and rhyme—
    why are they no help to me now
    I want to make
    something imagined, not recalled?
    Robert Lowell (1917–1977)

    Morality for the novelist is expressed not so much in the choice of subject matter as in the plot of the narrative, which is perhaps why in our morally bewildered time novelists have often been timid about plot.
    Jane Rule (b. 1931)