Arts & Entertainment
 

Alley's 'Our Lady' disappoints

Impressive story line falls victim to bad plot handling, even worse acting

By Chris Brunt
The Daily Cougar

Stephen Adly Guirgis' newest play is very loud. If you like loud things, it is possible that you may find it an enjoyable two hours. Our Lady of 121st Street is also a wickedly funny, obscene, cruel, tender, and ultimately mediocre night of theater.

Guirgis is one of the next big things on Broadway, though that future designation is quickly becoming obsolete. This is his second major production and has cast him into the limelight along with Pulitzer Prize winners David Auburn and Suzi Lori-Parks, both young playwrights who have seen their works at the Alley this season.

He's going to be around for a while, and he'll probably be as successful as most predict. But Guirgis just isn't there yet. His command of voice is remarkable, each character with a loud and clear rant that is discernibly his own, but his treatment of plot is miserable, and he isn't getting any boosts from this production by the Alley Theatre.

A native New Yorker, Guirgis' plays are concerned with the lives of those urbanites that Woody Allen failed to dramatize. They are impassioned, embittered, enraged and in one particular case, embalmed.

Our Lady's characters are adults who return to the old New York neighborhood they grew up in to attend the funeral of Sister Rose, a community matron and overworked metaphor. As they are gathered, old alliances and rivalries are summoned and it is in these scenes that Guirgis' skill for voice is most present.

If the acting was better, the withered lines of shared agony would be visible on these faces, and heavy pathos would seep through the cracks in their voices. These characters are endowed with truly vivid stories and fascinating ways of revealing them, what's needed is a sharper focus by Guirgis and better production.

To get back to voice, maybe three out of 10 principles has a believable East Coast accent. This is a substantial oversight when portraying the hard-hewn inhabitants of West Harlem. The dialogue is often so off-key and seemingly unprepared that the speakers seem to be meeting each other for the first time rather than reviving childhood relationships.

James Black's direction doesn't exactly mitigate the overall unevenness of the stage action. Between the numerous scene changes, Black has hip-hop blaring from the Alley house system, often for only a few seconds until the lights are up, and then an awkward silence accompanies the players. This could've been effective had Black not flipped the switch on every track, mid-syllable, leaving whatever energies that had begun to brew to hang in the air half-baked.

Todd Rosenthal's set work doesn't impress either. The backdrop is somewhat crude, and the stage is all but an empty save for a portrait of the Virgin, sometimes brightly lit and always watching, perhaps a clever Guirgis nod to Tennessee Williams.

While we're naming names, there were big problems with Mara Blumenfeld's costume design. A blatant lack of authenticity seems to be a chronic aspect of this production: with Puerto Ricans dressed as adolescent boys and a well-off hipster whose suit came off the NBA rack.

Despite these problems, Our Lady is a flamboyant play, and Guirgis' dialogue teems with a rabid intelligence. After so many spot-on productions, it's a shame the Alley had to drop the ball on this one.

Our Lady of 121st Street

The Alley Theatre, 

615 Texas Ave.

Playing: through April 18

The verdict: It's really too bad you didn't see the Philip Hoffman-directed off-Broadway production of this.

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