BWW Reviews: GOOD PEOPLE at TheaterWorks in Hartford

Hartford's a good city for a production of David Lindsay-Abaire's play GOOD PEOPLE, which centers on questions of class in America: how is it that some people get out of the 'hood' and get ahead while others who work plenty hard don't?

The playwright grew up in South Boston, son of a factory worker and a fruit and vegetable peddler, and credits his own escape from Southie to education-at least in part. At age 12, he was awarded a 6-year scholarship from the Boys & Girls Club to Milton Academy, a suburban prep school, and from there he went on to Sarah Lawrence College and Juilliard. A prolific playwright, with multiple widely produced works and a new show opening off-Broadway this fall (RIPCORD), he's won the Pulitzer for Drama (with RABBIT HOLE); written the book for SHREK THE MUSICAL, and several screenplays, including the remake of POLTERGEIST now in theaters.

By 2011, when he wrote GOOD PEOPLE, he'd come far enough to be able to look back to his roots. And you can see he'd studied plenty of Chekhov. The accents are flat out Southie and the language often crude, but it's a play about entangled survival relationships in a community that is marooned and stuck. It acknowledges the grit and desperation and humor of people bumping along at or below the poverty line. Lindsay-Abaire offers no easy answers, and makes the inner moral landscape of his lead characters plenty complicated. By leaving the audience to grapple with questions about what makes someone good, and how we define success, he's a little Brechtian, too.

The show opens with the central character of Margie (Erika Rolfsrud) being fired from her job at the Dollar Store. She's been late just too many times. Why? She's late because she can't leave her disabled adult daughter alone at home and the neighbor she hires to watch her is herself unreliable. But the reasons don't matter and she's sacked, by a manager (Stevie, well played by Buddy Haardt) who doesn't find it easy to do but must or he'll lose his own job. No stranger to the neighborhood, he's known Margie all his life; she knew his mom.

What's quickly clear is that everybody knows everybody, and most of their business. Lots of gossip gets hashed over during bingo nights at the local church hall, where Margie and Stevie meet up with Jean (Megan Byrne), a tough talking firebrand, and Dottie (Audrie Neenan), who makes a few extra bucks crafting cutesy rabbits for sale. We hear about Cookie, the homeless high school classmate who dies on the street, some toughs who've ended up in prison, perpetually unemployed husbands, deadbeat dads, the constant search for work.

But the big topic of conversation is Mike, the one member of the high school gang who escaped from Southie. He's a doctor now, with a Boston practice and a big house in Chestnut Hill. Having lost her meager income, Margie is desperate enough to heed Jean's urging and go seek him out, to see if he might have a job to offer a pal from the old neighborhood.

R. Ward Duffy brings graying, edgy polish to the role of Mike. His aura of control slips as Margie's persistence sets up a confrontation on his home turf, and with Kate, his wife, played with wounded and brittle charm by Chandra Thomas.

Six actors and five locations are a lot to squeeze onto TheaterWorks' small stage. Scenic designer Luke Hegel-Cantarella uses video projections to help us see the surroundings the characters move through, from Southie to Chestnut Hill and back. He nails all but one of the five locations: the upscale doctor's office doesn't measure up. Sound designer Mike Miceli does well helping to establish place. Dialect coach Gillian Lane-Plescia has gotten terrific work from the actors. Director Rob Ruggiero's staging is fairly static but I'm prepared to believe this is a deliberate choice underlining how confined the characters' choices are, in fact. The focus here is really on character detail and interaction.

What's most memorable about this production is Erika Rolfsrud's work in the role of Margie: she's utterly without actorly vanity and fiercely committed to her character's circumstances. She doesn't shy away from awkwardness; she's unpredictable; she fights to maintain a moral compass in a world that really isn't fair and where survival isn't a given. I admire the playwriting here, despite feeling that some scenes are a little too speechy. We need more plays that expose the roots and complexities of the increasing economic inequalities in our country. I like, too, the way kindness (but not salvation) comes from an unexpected quarter as the play closes, without any over-reaching for a sweet resolution.

Photo credit: Lenny Nagler

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