Frances McDormand in Good People
Southie Shines on Broadway
By: Charles Giuliano - Mar 30, 2011
Good People
by David Lindsay-Abaire
Manhattan Theater Club’s Samuel J. Friedman Theater
261 West 47th Street
Directed by Daniel Sullivan
Sets by John Lee Beatty; costumes by David Zinn; lighting by Pat Collins; sound by Jill B C DuBoff; dialect coach, Charlotte Fleck
Cast:
Becky Ann Baker (Jean), Patrick Carroll (Stevie), Tate Donovan (Mike), Renée Elise Goldsberry (Kate), Frances McDormand (Margaret) and Estelle Parsons (Dottie).
Running time: two hours with one 15-minute intermission.
Until May 8.
There was a conga line that snaked and twirled round and round for the half price ticket booths in Times Square.
While it was a week of mostly frigid, rainy, blustery weather, during a winter that just won’t quit, the tourists were out in droves. With a number of shows closing through the dark and gloomy months, hope springs eternal on Broadway.
The plethora of international visitors are mostly interested in the perennial blockbuster musicals. Add to that the latest hit The Book of Mormon. And wannabes like Priscilla Queen of the Desert which most critics have scratched off as an enervating drag. There’s a hopeful revival of Anything Goes with Joel Grey and another for How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. Yawn. It was a bore the last time I saw it. A bit of fluff in Wonderland. The jury is still out on potty mouthed Chris Rock in The Motherfucker with a Hat which is in previews. As is that notorious albatross Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark the opening of which has been delayed, delayed, and delayed yet again. It is now in triage, AKA rewrites.
Everyone on line wanted The Book of Mormon but it is unlikely that discount tickets will be had for at least a couple of years. Spider-Man was on the board, however, which is not a good sign. I was tempted but passed.
There is a neat trick at the Times Square TKTS booth. If you opt for a drama instead of a musical you jump the line and queue up at the other end for the single window. There were only about five folks in front of us. Everyone was hoping for Good People but it was not on the board. Never is. The show starring Frances McDormand is mostly sold out through May 8. As is everyone’s second choice War Horse at Lincoln Center. After a bit of discourse we all opted for Robin Williams in Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo. It opens this week.
When Astrid departed for the weekend in D.C. with her daughter and family I was on my own. On Friday I joined BFA critic Susan Hall for an avant-garde evening of New York City Opera. She loved Monodramas which was challenging but made me better for the experience.
On Saturday, after a second tour of Chelsea galleries, I decided to avoid the bridge/ tunnel zoo of Times Square. Instead I opted for the comfort food of Little Poland in the East Village and a delightful indie film Barney. The heart warming, poignant film, starring Paul Giamatti and Dustin Hoffman including wonderful performances by Rosamund Pike and Minnie Driver. Be sure to put it in your Netflix queue.
For a Sunday matinee I bit the bullet and coughed up a hundred and twenty five bucks for Good People. When I arrived the shown had sold out and there was a wait list for cancellations.
I wasn’t disappointed. Great show.
But big bucks, full price, got me a lousy seat four rows from the end of the orchestra.
Then, good grief, I was parked next to this huge dude who took up all of his seat and half of mine. Then he nodded off and snored. Just thank God we weren’t arm wrestling on a twelve hour flight to Tokyo. When you are playing push and shove it is hard to concentrate even during a great play like Good People.
The fabulous performance by Oscar winner (Fargo) Frances McDormand was worth taking one for the team.
The audience just lapped up the drama about a down on her luck single mom from Southie. But, dare say, I loved it even more as I got all the in jokes and those spot on Boston accents. The most authentic since Good Will Hunting. The dialect coach Charlotte Fleck did a terrific job of helping a superb cast nail that flat twang. It is more about class than neighborhood. We didn’t speak that way growing up in posh, privileged Brookline.
Margaret (Frances McDormand) has been bashed and battered. But has a scrappy, feisty backlash with wicked sharp zingers. It’s the bantering, tough love, give and take she shares in her kitchen with the landlady who lives upstairs Dottie (Estelle Parsons) and the raucous, blowsy Jean (Becky Ann Baker).
In the opening scene set in an alley behind the dollar store, where she works as a cashier, Margaret is fired for excessive tardiness. She argues that it is not her fault. The baby sitter (Dottie) is chronically late. Margaret has a challenged daughter who was born premature.
Now laid off from yet another crappy job she is also behind on the rent. Dottie threatens to evict her to make room for her out of work son. There is always the option of Gillette a perennial employer of Southie workers. But it is a last resort and Margaret doubts that she can keep up with the pace of the assembly line. There isn’t much else out there.
Casually, Jean mentions that Margaret’s old boyfriend Mike (Tate Donovan) has moved back to the area. He broke out of Southie and is now a successful doctor. He may have a lead on a job and is worth taking a shot. They dated that summer before he went off to college. When they broke up she started seeing someone else and became pregnant. She dropped out of school to take care of the child. The father proved to be useless. There is the suggestion, never resolved, that Mikey may have been the father.
Awkwardly she barges into his office having gotten by the Hispanic receptionist with a nice rack who gave her attitude. While Mikey has made out well in life he still has that tell tale Southie accent. “I’m a reproductive endocrinologist,” he says “I don’t know what you just said,” she replies, “but I just got a little excited.”
There are no openings in his office but Mikey would like to help. It tumbles out that his wife is hosting a catered birthday party that weekend. She wangles an invitation while accusing him of going “lace curtain” like the Kennedys. He takes umbrage at being taken for uppity Irish. Which all the more backs him into including her in the party with all his rich boring friends. One of whom may have a lead on a job.
To a native Bostonian it is hilarious when she speculates where he might live. Brookline? Newton? Wellesley? No he keeps protesting. Heavens no, not moi. Until he finally admits Chestnut Hill. Which was so perfectly apt. Lost on most of the audience. She doesn’t know how to get there. He rings the receptionist to give her directions. “By T” she adds.
In a side splitting trope Margaret and her pals play Bingo at the church. She hopes to win enough to buy an outfit for the party and not just show up with something from Good Will. To earn a few extra bucks Dottie makes and decorates five buck rabbits. It is approaching Easter her big season.
While in the kitchen with her cronies Margaret gets a call from Mikey that the party has been cancelled because his child is sick. She assumes that she is getting dumped and decides to head for the party anyway. With one of those kitschy rabbits as a birthday present.
The sets by John Lee Beatty are terrific especially the Chestnut Hill home of Dr. Mikey. The quick change from her seedy Southie kitchen to his luxurious suburban home is spot on. She is met at the door by Kate (Renée Elise Goldsberry) the doctor’s stunning, African American wife, a professor of literature. She was the daughter of the doctor he interned under.
Kate, who we learn is having marital difficulties, assumes that Margaret is with the catering firm. The party has indeed been cancelled and after some confusing dialogue about a misunderstanding Kate insists that she stay for wine and cheese. The caterers have refused to take back the cheese and Kate takes Margaret through a tour of the exotic delicacies. “Have you got any Cracker Barrel” she asks. Kate, never missing a beat, the perfect hostess, responds that it is one of her favorites as well.
Understandably, Mikey is less than thrilled to have this awkward guest. But for Kate it is a chance to learn more about his Southie background which he never discusses. Margaret has lots of embarrassing tales to tell. About how Mikey and his pals almost beat to death some black kids from the Columbia Point projects who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. That racist past does not sit well with his chic African American wife.
There are references to the era of bussing and race riots at South Boston High. We recall the political rabble rousers like Louise Day Hicks and Pixie Palladino. Southie proved to be more hard core reactionary than Selma or Birmingham. Locally, they called it Southie Pride. Think twice before messing with its hooligans. There were a few Whitey Bulger one liners.
Things started to spin out of control and threatened to clone the final scenes of God of Carnage. We won’t spoil the fun. Suffice it to say that Margaret crawls back to Southie and yet another bingo game. Stevie (Patrick Carroll) the nice guy who was forced by his boss to fire her from the Dollar Store helps her out with a loan of that month’s rent. And will put a word in with friends at Gillette.
“But what about next month’s rent” the shrill and flinty Dottie wants to know. As the curtain falls we are left hanging. So it goes in Southie. But what would I know having grown up in Brookline. So did JFK. Coolidge Corner actually. It made the half Irish in me feel so, well, lace curtain.