All photos by Lanny Nagler
Electricity.
The word can be
defined in many ways, but for actors, it’s the two-way flow between them and
the audience sitting out there in the dark. Anyone who has acted will tell you
that when the flow isn’t there, when the collective wattage of the audience
wouldn’t power a nightlight, it’s as if you’re working in a fog. Your fellow
actors seem distant and lifeless, the character you are playing seems
pointless, a sham, and you simply can’t wait for the curtain to fall so you can
get the hell out of there to ponder your choice of professions.
Ah, but when the
current is surging, you are transported. You’re on a high. Everything is in
sharp focus and you are taken over by the character you are portraying. You
feed on the energy. Time becomes relative and, when the curtain falls you find
you have to decompress, somehow find a way to exorcise the character you were
possessed by and enter back into your own body. The evening has been a
collectively creative experience.
So, what does all
of this have to do with “Good People,” David Lindsay-Abaire’s exercise in
emotional manipulation, regret and sacrifice that recently opened at
TheaterWorks? Well, if the performance I attended is any indication, the entire
city of Hartford
could be powered by the energy that flows between stage and house.
Set in South Boston – or “Southie” – and the posh suburb of
Chestnut Hill, the play opens with Stevie (Buddy Haardt) taking Margaret (Erika
Rolfsrud) out into an alley to fire her for consistent tardiness. Maggie tries
to manipulate Stevie with references to their shared past (much of which has to
do with his mother and a turkey) and the need to care for her daughter, but
Stevie, pressured by management, sticks to his guns. In a tough job market,
Maggie is once again out of a job with a mentally challenged daughter to care
for. She soon finds herself at a bingo game (read metaphor for the vagaries of
life – the role “luck” plays in whom we become), seated with her friend Jean (a
delightfully acerbic Megan Byrne) and her landlady, Dottie (Audrie Neenan). As
the numbers are called out, there is commiseration and counseling, and the
announcement that Mike (R. Ward Duffy), an old (short-lived) beau of Maggie’s,
is back in town, now a successful doctor. Perhaps, Jean suggests, Maggie can
ask Mike for a job. She also suggests a ploy Maggie might use that will play a
central role in the second act. Maggie goes to Mike’s office, and the emotional
pas-de-deux between the two commences, a dance that will, eventually, become
emotionally riveting.
Audrie Neenan, Erika Rolfsrud and Megan Byrne
The second act
finds Maggie in Chestnut Hill. She essentially invades Mike’s home, where he
and his wife, Kate (Chandra Thomas), are dealing with their own inter-personal
problems, a simmering cauldron that Maggie will, motivated by her own needs and
the true history of her relationship with Mike, bring to a boil. The
conversation begins with superficial niceties. Wine and cheese are served…and
then all hell breaks loose, leading to a decision Maggie must make about what
it means to be a “good person,” followed by a coda that confirms suspicions
and, with the simple announcement of a bingo number, suggests a ray of hope.
As directed by Rob
Ruggiero, TheaterWorks producing artistic director, “Good People” is consummate
theater, emotionally involving and ultimately satisfying on many levels. It
doesn’t hurt that he has gathered together a group of excellent actors to work
with him, starting with Rolfsrud, who has thrilled and chilled TheaterWorks’
audiences in the past in “Time Stands Still” and “Rabbit Hole” (another
Lindsay-Abaire play). Rolfsrud owns the stage from the moment she is ushered
out into that alley, creating a multi-faceted, emotionally conflicted character
who both engages and enrages, for Maggie is needful, proud, conniving and a
master of passive-aggressiveness. She is a survivor in a game that has
apparently been rigged. Rolfsrud’s work in the second act, as her character
tries to find a calm, moral center amidst a swirl of emotions, is priceless.
Buddy Haardt, Erika Rolfsrud,
Megan Byrne and Audrie Neenan
Megan Byrne and Audrie Neenan
The arc of
Maggie’s emotions is matched by those of Mike, and as Rolfsrud’s Maggie keeps
on raising the emotional ante, Duffy responds. From their characters’ first
confrontation, it’s a yin-yang game of ping-pong that becomes increasingly
revelatory and visceral. Both Rolfsrud and Duffy are well-versed in using both
body language and eye contact to enhance the meaning of the dialogue – the
locked gaze and emotionally electric silence between the two near the end of
the second act convey a truth that can’t be captured in words.
In supporting
roles, Haardt, Neenan, Byrne and Thomas are equally engaging. Byrne uses a
female version of the slow-burn to great effect, certainly knows how to needle,
and can say volumes with a simple stare. In opposition, Neenan gives her
character an annoying “dottiness” that is consistently humorous. Although there
are moments when Thomas, as Kate, seems a visitor in her own home, her
character’s final confrontation with Maggie is effective, and Haardt provides a
satisfying, low-key balance to Maggie’s flamboyantly needful persona.
Mention should be
made of the scene changes, which are punctuated and accented by filmed tracking
shots (designed by Luke Hegel-Cantarella) – all in suffused color reminiscent
of early Technicolor films. The scenes range from close-ups of stocked shelves
in a Dollar Store to urban street scenes and a manicured suburb. Projected
against Hegel-Cantarella’s bare-bones, wood-paneled “Southie” set and
corresponding well-appointed suburban living room, they create a sense of
nostalgia and, in an odd way, the ghosts of the past that haunt the present.
These projections
are evidence that cast and creative team had a vision, an agreement about how
“Good People” should be presented and what the play is about. This vision
permeates the performances and infuses the entire production. Not surprisingly,
at the curtain the cast got a standing-O, but you got the feeling that those on
stage were saying the same thing back to the audience: thanks for a wonderful
evening of theater.
"Good
People" runs through June 28. For tickets or more information call
860-527-7838 or go to www.theaterworkshartford.org.
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