Theatre Review: Good People

Good People is David Lindsay-Abaire’s dramatic follow-up to the Tony-winning Rabbit Hole, which, in turn, was produced into a film by Nicole Kidman and James Cameron Mitchell.  People stars Jane Kaczmarek (multiple Emmy-award nominee for Malcolm in the Middle) in the central role played by Frances McDormand on Broadway about a blue-collar mother living hand-to-mouth with her adult-aged mentally-challenged daughter.  Having adopted a Boston-accent with ease, her Margie is a shit-disturber who can barely keep her life together.  Manipulation is part of her nature that her sweet disposition often sabotages.  She's terrible at being bad and she has failed to capitalize on her goodness.  She fishes around and tests those before her to see how much they're willing to give.  She’ll play any card necessary to get what she wants, but she does it so poorly, her scrappiness becomes her most telling (and endearing) trait. 

Sara Botsford, Jane Kaczmarek, Marylouise Burke

The crux of the play involves a reunion that pits the have’s against the have-not's.  In the latter category, Margie has some shrewdly cast haphazard allies.  Sara Botsford as salt-of-the-earth Jean drolly chews her gum as she plays the straight-man to Marylouise Burke’s Dottie—an off-her-rocker potty-mouth who expertly places every “shit” and “fuck” in just the right musical key and timing.  These two ladies could easily take their act on the road to sell-out crowds as they simply had the audience in stitches through every one of their scenes to break up the tragic elements of the story. 

They are part of the 99%, though the play itself doesn’t make the elite or the "lace curtain" types Enemy Number 1(%).  The play treads on maudlin ice at times during the second act and becomes a tad too preachy turning into a lecture for a couple of minutes where the dialogue jumps off the stage rather than ricochet between the characters.  Yet, the hiccups are pretty excusable as Good People dares to question the very system we live in that downplays and ignores the value in the non-genetic component of the nature verses nurture argument.  Luck plays a huge role in the lives of many.  Faded memories over the course of time lead to a self-entitlement and unintentioned smugness that can slowly rob us of our souls, as well as our connection to this world.  The play doesn’t judge us for where we fall on the economical spectrum, nor how we feel about it.  But, it does present ideas which are hard to shrug off for a society who cares to move forward.  There are also a couple of crafty racial truths directed at the audience as well.  

The set is elegant in its simplicity and quite functional (despite a technical difficulty the night I was in attendance, as well as a wobbly “brick” façade), as it takes us from an alley behind a thrift store to Margie’s apartment, to a doctor’s office, to a bingo hall, to the gorgeous centerpiece of the second act.  Also in the cast is Cherise Boothe, Brad Fleischer, and Jon Tenney.  The director is Matt Shakman, founder and artistic director of the Black Dahlia Theatre.  Go see this play.