Our Lady of 121st Street
Carolina Actor’s Studio Theatre, 118 Clement Avenue
Wednesday – Saturday at 8PM, through February 6th
Reservations call 704-455-8542; online reservations click here.
When evaluating a play that answers none of the questions it raises, you somehow have to figure out what it all meant to you.
That’s where I was after watching CAST’s production of Stephen Adly Guirgis’ Our Lady of 121st Street. After a few minutes of head-scratching and soul-searching, I settled on it: we are who we leave behind when we’re gone.
Guirgis’ play opens in a funeral home, appointed with the excellence we expect from a CAST set, where an open (and empty) casket greets the audience. Over the next two hours, we get a picture of the deceased, Sister Rose, whose body has been stolen from her casket as she was lying in state. Without ever uttering a line, Sister Rose serves as the vanished narrator to Guirgis’ neighborhood, guiding us through the life she led and the lives she touched in an eloquent story about the marks we leave on others.
Alternately funny, poignant, and occasionally confusing, Guirgis’ script gives actors and directors plenty of room to move and breathe. Director Paige Johnston Thomas gets the most out of both the text and her eclectic cast, using the CAST Boxagon space elegantly and efficiently without ever making it appear cluttered. Thomas also staged her actors well, using the small space effectively to achieve maximum emotional impact. Jay Thomas’ video clips go a long way in helping with the transitions, setting the stage going into each scene and distracting the audience from the crew (and cast) moving the few scenic elements on and off stage. The lighting by Chris Socha moved the action without being distracting, and the confessional booth lighting was particularly good.
The patchwork quilt of characters was fascinating, as the death of a beloved teacher brought old friends and lovers back together-- often with explosive results. Sidney Horton was a shining example of understated humor and pathos as the inveterate Lothario Rooftop, making his first confession in three decades. Horton’s monologue to end Act I reminds a viewer of the immediacy of theatre, and how a really talented actor needs nothing but a chair and a text to take an audience by the neck and shove it into that mirror Shakespeare talked about. The portrayal of Rooftop alternated between ridiculous and sympathetic as the actor presented a man scared of what he has become. Bill Neff played the perfect foil as his confessor Father Lux, the grumpy, racist priest who doesn’t leave the parish until Rooftop draws him out.
Other standout performances included Rob Simmons’ charmingly dimwitted Pinky and his manic brother Edwin, played by the Freddie Prinze-like JR Adduci. The relationship between Pinky and Edwin feels a little stereotyped, with the long-suffering older sibling caring for his mentally disabled kid brother-- a relationship that builds to the slightly clichéd "big argument." But the care with which Simmons and Adduci portray their characters outweighs the overworked scenario and forces an audience to sympathize with these men. Newcomers (at least to me) Lauren Crozier and Carmen Thwaites were delightful surprises, and the always-solid John Cunningham’s scene with a pantsless Jim Esposito was at once beautiful and heart-breaking.
From the recreated subway ticket window at the box office to the funeral-ready chair coverings, all details for the performance were well-executed. If this experience is indicative of what 2010 will bring for CAST, then 2009’s "Theatre Company of the Year" is off to a great start.
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This article was made possible by a grant from the Arts & Science Council.