By Arlene McKanic
Our Lady of 121st Street, put on by The Outrageous Fortune Company and directed by Foster Davis, is a bit of a departure for the Queens Theatre in the Park. It’s grittier than what audiences who attend plays in the studio theater are used to; the language is rough and some of the characters are flat−out unlikeable. But the play, written by Stephen Adly Guirgis, never fails to be absorbing.
It’s the recent past and the lady of the title, a nun, has died. More, somebody seems to have stolen her body. Her former students gather to mourn and sort out their lives while they wait for her corpse to turn up.
As with any crisis, Sister Rose’s death brings out both the best and the worst in most of them. Victor (Todd Miller), whose pants have been stolen along with the nun’s body, is consumed by angry grief, while the quiet, alcoholic detective Balthazar (Alfredo Diaz) investigates the crime while he tries to keep memories of his dead son at bay.
At one point Balthazar tries to question the dangerously angry and vicious Norca (Judianny ComprÉs), only to get a black eye for his trouble. Norca, who tries to drown her grief and rootlessness in booze, also lashes out at Sonia (Jessica Goldstein), a suburbanite who’s much too ingratiating and genteel to be in the midst of the rough types of East Harlem.
Sonia has come to what should be the funeral with her friend, the nun’s niece Marcia (Allison Ungar). Marcia’s just as unbiddable as Norca, though her neuroses (“Who’s been smoking in here?” she demands when she walks into the church) have more of a middle−class flavor.
Rooftop, a successful DJ played by Cliff Jean, has flown in from California to attend the wake — though not the funeral, since he can’t handle funerals — and try to make up with his still furious ex−wife Inez, played with bristling energy by Candice Jean−Jacques.
But before this, Rooftop has a long, involved and funny confession with the priest Father Lux (Frank Freeman), a man who lost his legs in Vietnam and is quickly losing his faith in Harlem — he usually doesn’t believe in God, he confesses to Rooftop, and when he does he’s furious at Him.
Inez, by the way, is friends, as much as one can be friends, with Norca, and also with Flip (Tracy Winston), a black gay lawyer who wants his white lover Gail (Daniel Cibener) to fade into the closet for the duration of their stay. In Flip’s old hood it does not do to declare one’s homosexuality, though Gail eventually does in a hilarious scene near the play’s end.
Then there’s Edwin, the super, whose life is dedicated to the care of his mentally challenged brother Pinky. Labile and childlike, Pinky is the only one in the play who isn’t called upon to examine his life and dredge up old disappointments, and even Norca seems to like him. John Cabrera and Rand Guerrero are both excellent and moving in these roles, as are all of the actors in theirs.
Also excellent are the director Davis and his lighting designer, the veteran Glenn Rivano. The set design is spare, with black boxes serving as furniture.
Guirgis, an Egyptian−Irish American who grew up on the Upper West Side and went to school in Harlem, gets the dialogue, bitter humor and folkways of his characters perfectly. You might not want to hang with some of them, but they are never anything but vivid and real.
Our Lady of 121st Street will be at The Queens Theatre in the Park through March 15.
If You Go:
Our Lady of 121st Street, By Stephen Adly Guirgis
When: Through March 15, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 3 p.m.
Where: Queens Theatre in the Park, Flushing Meadows Corona Park
Cost: $22 advance, $25 at the door
Contact: 718−428−2500 ext. 20 or 718−160−0064
