David Lindsay-Abaire's "Good People" is an awkward hybrid of working-class comedy, melodrama and social commentary.
The commentary is valid and the comedy works quite well. The melodrama, not so much. Although Lindsay-Abaire's gifts as a writer are obvious, he can never make the disparate elements cohere. The good news is he gives us some vivid and closely observed characters speaking hilarious, hard-nosed dialogue. The even better news is that he tackles a subject that interests very few playwrights: class divisions in America.
The Unicorn Theatre and Kansas City Actors Theatre have joined forces to produce the two-act piece about residents of South Boston, some of who are seemingly trapped forever in a hard-scrabble minimum-wage world. This co-production is crisply directed by Mark Robbins, who assembles a strong cast. Together they make the most of the play's significant strengths and work hard to navigate the stumbling blocks of Lindsay-Abaire's forced dramaturgy.
Jan Rogge plays Margie (pronounced with a hard "G"), a middle-aged mother of an adult daughter who is developmentally handicapped. Margie scrapes by on an hourly wage job at a Dollar General store until she's fired for showing up late for work once too often. She has a valid excuse ? her daughter needs constant care and supervision ? but the young store manager (nicely played by Phillip Russell Newman) is only doing the bidding of his boss.
After consulting with her eccentric landlady, Dottie (Kathleen Warfel in rare form), and her pal Jean (Manon Halliburton projecting deadpan acerbity), Margie decides to look up a fellow Southie who got out and made good ? Mike, who is now a successful doctor. Mike, played by Scott Cordes as a guy whose rough Southie roots are just below the surface, lives in an upscale neighborhood with his younger wife Kate, a literature professor played by the charismatic Dianne Yvette.
Margie hopes Mike can offer her an office job but their superficially friendly (and increasingly awkward) meeting culminates with Margie wrangling an invitation to Mike's birthday party. There, he implies, she might score a job offer from one of his rich friends.
Later Mike calls to tell Margie the party's been canceled. She assumes that Mike is simply putting her off because he would be embarrassed to introduce her to his successful friends. So she decides to crash the party, only to discover that it was indeed canceled because Kate and Mike's young daughter is under the weather. As the unexpected visit progresses with wine and cheese, Margie starts bringing up events in the past. By so doing she reveals a side of Mike of which Kate was unaware.
Kate is African-American and becomes a means for Lindsay-Abaire to articulate one of his themes: That the real divide in this country is about class, not race. That's a debatable proposition, but the author's intent is clear. Kate also stands in stark contrast to Margie, who occasionally drops casually racist asides into conversation.
A problem with this production is that Kate and Mike, at least as played by these actors, simply don't feel like a real couple. Cordes, who can play blue-collar characters in his sleep, struggles at times to project Mike's veneer of bourgeois respectability.
Even so, everyone in the cast handles Lindsay-Abaire's pungent, rhythmic dialogue with exquisite timing. Rogge is at her earthy best as a woman whose mouth should be a registered weapon.
The play concludes on a fleetingly optimistic note, but Margie's circumstances haven't fundamentally changed. She just wants to take care of her daughter. And she needs a job. Like so many other people.
Jason Coale's scenic design generally services the material, although Mike and Kate's living room doesn't look convincingly upscale. Georgianna Londre Buchanan's costuming is effective, as is Alex Perry's lighting.
Source: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/03/03/4097118/strong-performances-eathy-humor.html
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