BWW Reviews: 1st Stage's THE GOOD COUNSELOR is More Than Just Good

There is some stellar acting happening over at McLean's1st Stage Theatre right now. The Good Counselor is a taut, stirring story of family, that peels off the veneer, and shows us the layers of love, heartbreak, success and failure of which life with one's family is made. And it's a firm reminder that our own backyard is home to great theater.

Award-winning Playwright Kathryn Grant has written a complex, absorbing story with compelling characters, and, as directed by Alex Levy, there is an urgency crackling throughout, as if we were all balanced on the elevated train trestle with the two brothers in the story, playing cat and mouse with an oncoming train.

The "counselor," in the story is Vincent Heffernon (Manu Kumasi), a public defender assigned to represent Evelyn Laverty (Dani Stoller), a destitute young woman with a drinking problem and a young daughter, who is accused of murdering her infant son, David, and leaving his body in a bean field. She is frightened, angry, despairing, and wants nothing to do with explaining herself to anyone, even to save her own neck. Oh, and she's white and her lawyer is black. She's racist and belligerent; he's frustrated and distracted by just how close to home his client's life, and predicament, is to his own. Vincent is battling his demons as well as Evelyn's, including his family's and community's refusal to accept that he could defend a mother who would kill her child, despite his lack of choice in the matter. There is no defense, they say; nothing could justify such a heinous crime. Having been raised, seemingly quite successfully, by Rita, a tough-as-nails, single mother who faced her own demons, he is loathe to grant Evelyn an allowance for her dire circumstances. But his boss, Maia (Alina Collins) refuses to let him take the easy way out, and forces him to face the reality of his own childhood so that he can do his best for his client.

As Vincent, Manu Kumasi is likable, confounding, heartbreaking and passionate, sometimes all at once. The stage disappears when he's on it, and we are part of his world. He takes Vincent back and forth, from young boy to high school student to son to brother to lawyer to lost soul; sometimes with just a sigh, or a well-timed silence.

Dani Stoller's Evelyn is someone I wanted to root for, despite her steely, damaged demeanor. The audience travels Vincent's path with her, as he tries to understand what he must do to act in her best interest, and her gradual softening is expected, but satisfying nonetheless.

But key to the story as well, is the complicated charisma of Vincent's older brother, Ray, an intractable drug addict, unable to overcome the neglect in his past, but still adored by his younger brother. Played by the powerful and talented Bueka Uwemedimo, the scenes between Ray and Vincent were illuminating and touching. There is wonderful chemistry between the two actors, which is important to the storytelling. And as their mother, Deidra LaWan Starnes maintains a hard exterior with just enough cracks to draw us in, and make us want to understand her unyielding ways with her sons, and how (or if) they represent a mother's love.

Kathryn Kawecki's versatile set is as multilayered as the story, and can seem fittingly cavernous but also suffocating when required. It is with intense stories such as The Good Counselor that you realize how important the details in set and sound design (here by Rachel Barlaam) are to the punctuation of the emotions being conveyed.

So what does it mean to be a mother? How does a mother's love manifest in her children? How do we judge whether a mother is doing the best she can? How do we administer justice that serves the greater good? These are all questions The Good Counselor forces us to ask, and then tells us, in no uncertain terms, that there is no single answer to any of them. We must each find our own way. I'm glad I found my way to 1st Stage for this show. You can do the same through June 28.

Visit the theater's website for more information and tickets: http://www.1ststagetysons.org

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