Indy Theatre Habit

On Friday night I drove downtown to the Alley Theater to see the opening night performance of “Unmerciful Good Fortune,” written by Edwin Sanchez and directed by Carrie Schlatter.

Afterwards I sat in my car and sobbed for a good long while.  The cumulative effect of this intense drama is a satisfying catharsis.

When the show opens, a young woman intones, “Would you like fries with that?” while another young woman cares for her terminally ill mother.

Gradually we learn that the first young woman is a Puerto Rican-American girl-gang leader named Fatima (Erin Cohenour) and that she is in jail for poisoning several restaurant customers.  The other young woman is Maritza (Kimberly Ruse), an assistant district attorney.  She is also Puerto Rican-American and a single mother, but “a single rope kind of girl, never Double Dutch.”   We are in the Bronx, and Fatima is going to trial. 

This would be interesting enough, but there are many layers above and beneath this.  Fatima can learn people’s secrets and futures, just by holding their hands.  Maritza’s boss, Paul (Dan Flahive) and co-worker, Jeremy (Daniel Robert) don’t believe it at first.  Then Fatima takes Jeremy’s hand and uses what she learns about his shame to control him.  Fatima takes Paul’s hand and uses what she learns about his ambitions to control him.  Both men are frightened, but they come back later for more answers.  

When Fatima manipulates a resistant Maritza into letting her hold her hand, Fatima realizes that Maritza is the only one who can remove “the splinter” from Fatima’s heart.  Maritza eventually realizes, too, that Fatima means more to her than just a client.  Meanwhile at home, Maritza’s mother, Luz (Nancy Becker), and father, Pito (Bill Becker), demand Maritza’s help as well, pulling her in still more directions.  Layers and layers of secrets are revealed and painfully healed, or at least explored, as the play unfolds.

Nancy Becker is startlingly, achingly, believable as Luz, a former beauty “spoiled” by her doting older husband, and half-deranged and suicidal now from both physical and emotional pain.  Erin Cohenour gives Fatima a feral quality that is both mesmerizing and heartbreaking.  Kimberly Ruse made me feel both impatience with, and sympathy for, the good girl, Maritza, who yearns to be loved the way her father loves her mother.  Dan Flahive, Daniel Robert, and Bill Becker also bring complexity and depth to their relatively small roles.

The set is four segments arranged in a line length-wise in the Alley’s intimate “black box” space, across from audience members seated in two very long rows on risers.  The four segments are: a worn but comfortable family room and bedroom-turned-sickroom, each with its own patterned rug over hardwood floors; a depressingly bare interrogation room; and a non-descript office.  Black curtains form the background to all, and offer a couple of places for characters to slip in and out.  Unfortunately, the program does not say who designed the unusual set.  It was lit by Jim Dougherty.

There are some funny moments in this show, but mainly, as I said before, it is an intense and satisfying drama about very specific characters dealing with universal issues, emotions, and choices.

By the way, I have now been to four shows at the Alley Theater.  They have each been very different from the others, but I have yet to be disappointed.  The owners, Michelle and Bruce Kelley, seem to have a “Why not? Let’s try it!” attitude about show selection that is delightful.   To get to the Alley Theater, you have to actually drive down the alley that is behind the CVS drugstore just north of the intersection of 16th Street and Illinois.  It will feel strange, as if you are entering the theatre building from the back and parking in the wrong place.   Don’t be dissuaded: you are in the right place and the rest of the experience is always (so far) worth the slight uneasiness.  There is free coffee in the lobby, the box office staff members are friendly, the seats in the theatre are comfortable, and the show itself is well done and intriguing.

Back to this intriguing show… “Unmerciful Good Fortune” runs Friday-Sunday through Saturday, March 1.  Sunday performances are at the unusual, and in some ways more convenient, time of 6:00 pm.  Please call 317-926-8888 to make a reservation.

Hope Baugh – www.IndyTheatreHabit.com