Theater:  Good People: David Lindsay-Abaire/Manhattan Theater Club

A fabulous play with a fabulous cast:
Becky Ann Baker (stage, screen, TV)
Patrick Carroll (stage, screen, TV)
Tate Donovan (stage, screen, TV)
Renée Elise Goldsberry (stage, screen,TV)
Frances McDormand (stage, screen. TV: Academy Award for Fargo; Misssissippi Burning, Almost Famous, North Country)
Estelle Parsons: (stage, screen: August, Osage County, Academy Award: Bonnie & Clyde, nominée for Rachel, Rachel. Inducted into the Theater hall of Fame in 2004)

>>Link to Cast photos and bios<<

>>New York Times article on the playwright, Pulitzer Prize winner, David Lindsay-Abaire<<

What makes a person good? Are the “good” guys the ones who catch all the breaks? These are two of many questions  presented in David Lindsay-Abaire’s play, Good People, performed at The Samuel J. Friedman Theater through the Manhattan Theater Club. Somewhat autobiographical, Mr. Lindsay-Abaire’s work explores poverty in Boston’s South End (“Southie”) where class distinction is as palpable as race distinction. You catch a lucky break and make it out or end up possibly dying on the street. This is the land of work at the Gilette factory and where Saturday night is spent at the bingo hall in church.

When Margaret loses her job at The Dollar Store because she can’t make it to work on time, we know she has been through this scene before. But why is she always late? She has a hard time getting responsible people to watch her adult daughter who is mentally challenged. It seems that each problem is woven into another, linked together by the endless webs that poverty spins. Getting pregnant while in high school, working terrible jobs, having to care for a handicapped child, the “father” skipping.

Margaret is faced with possible eviction if she can’t come up with the rent and entertains her neighbor’s suggestion to visit an old high school sweetheart, Mike, who is a doctor. Maybe he can help her get a job. The thought is planted and hope is renewed. But the visit to the old flame, now a “lace-curtain” professional who lives in Chestnut Hill and who has a younger wife and child, creates a juxtaposition filled with pathos when the present class delineation is revealed; his child, her child…her child…was she their child?

Margaret always thought Mike was “good people”: someone who is honorable, decent. But is he really? Did he sell himself out? Was his past all that clean? What was his lucky break?
Perhaps those who suffer in poverty are sometimes the “good people.” More than they know…it all comes together in the end.

reply catfishred wrote on Feb 24, ’11 “There’s this thin line between doing pretty good and not doing well at all. I mean, being unemployed and having no prospects.” This is an interesting line to muse, especially in these times when employment is not as easily gained as it was just a few years back. As the baby boomers age, many live on pensions while still others eke out a living still. Regardless, what path we’ve chosen, at this point, we’re pretty much stuck with the decisions we’ve made in our younger years that now either haunt or enhance our middle-age lives. I hope I’m not just rambling here, but the theme of the struggling middle-class single mother verging on poverty and wondering where any possible help is coming from  It has got me to thinking. Or will she end up being all alone straddled with such burdens? I didn’t raise a handicapped child, but I do know that personal choices have made life harder for me, at least financially, than for my other siblings. Sometimes I look back and question certain motives. Other times, I feel I was somewhat duped by a subculture that overshadowed me and my developing ideas about things more than I once realised. Their influences I now find superfluous. Today those caught up in ‘class’ identity more than ‘race’ relations often feel pressures even in the neighbourhoods they’ve chosen to live, behaving like they once saw their parents behave. In this I mean that they find themselves being caught up in ‘out bettering’ their neighbours; or, conversely, being embarrassed by homes not properly cared for and/or remodelled as they’d like them to be. Etc., etc. But who exactly are these ‘good people’? Are they those tending not to squeak and make a lot of noise, just doing what they do like quiet souls full of integrity, or even playing at martyrdom? Are they kind and considerate? Or just fools? I don’t know. Do you? This would be an interesting play to see. Full of questions like a Tom Stoppard play. Enjoy!

reply sanssouciblogs wrote on Feb 24, ’11 Hey, Red, thanks for stopping by and leaving your usual brilliant insights. You made me think even more about the play; there were so many layers. Another theme: having money doesn’t make you a better person, no, not at all! And the struggles of class, jobs, money, choices are all coming home to roost in today’s days. It all boils down to money–and what we do with it and with US.

reply sanssouciblogs wrote on Feb 26, ’11 I have to say that the acting was flawless, very moving. If you haven’t seen the movie Fargo, catch Frances McDormand in it. Fabulous.

reply sanssouciblogs wrote on Mar 5, ’11 The play is out of previews and has been reviewed by The New York Times: http://theater.nytimes.com/2011/03/04/theater/reviews/04good.html?scp=1&sq=Good+People&st=nyt