Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Our Lady of 121st Street by Our Lady of 121st Street: Best New Play in a Decade. I’ve rarely loved a play as much Our Lady of 121st Street . The immensely gifted Stephen Adly Guirgis just fills me with hope, desperate though he is. His urban voice is startlingly fresh and new-an unmistakable great talent in the wilderness. From his combustible opening line-“What kinda fuckin’ world is this?!”-he frequently has us convulsed with laughter. Mr. Guirgis writes in infectious, liberating fury and sadness. No one can be this funny without feeling the pain of being alive and, in the end, you’ll surely find yourselves moved by his bruised characters in search of some kind of grace and weird redemption. At the same time, Our Lady , directed by , is brilliantly performed by a cast that’s bringing a new authentic reality onstage. The playwright himself is a sometime actor. Actor-playwrights have been known to write great virtuoso roles, often with themselves in mind. Philip Seymour Hoffman, the actor, needs no introduction. Between the two of them, the LAByrinth Theater Company’s cast of relative unknowns at the Union Square Theater is giving us the finest acting in town. Our Lady ‘s brief opening scene alone singles out Mr. Guirgis as an unpredictable, original mind whose talent is on a par even with the manic farce and subterfuge of Joe Orton. What do we first see (and hear)? A furious man named Vic is standing in his underpants by an empty casket in a Harlem funeral home. “What kinda fuckin’ world is this?! I mean, am I alone here?” He is not alone. With him is a deadpan man named Balthazar, who’s an alcoholic cop. “What are you, a cop?” Vic asks. “No, Vic, I’m a farmer,” Balthazar replies. “I came here to sell some eggs.” But Vic is unstoppable, ranting in his underwear, and Richard Petrocelli, playing the terrific cameo, has us riveted by his explosive indignation. We don’t yet know what’s troubling him. But he does. “There are limits,” Vic protests. “I don’t give a shit! Maybe you grew up in a God-less jungle, but I remember when the world was not this! And this? This is not the world!” “O.K.,” says Balthazar (Felix Solis in a perfect, understated performance). But before long, Balthazar will say mildly, “Gotta ask you about your pants, Vic.” It turns out that Vic has come to the Ortiz Funeral Home to pay his respects to the beloved and feared Sister Rose, who’s just died of alcoholism. Almost all the characters in Our Lady were taught by Sister Rose. It’s a reunion play in that respect. But Sister Rose’s body has been stolen by some gang of punks who also stole Vic’s trousers. “Ya know,” Vic adds, “if Rudy were still in office, this woulda never happened-I’m sure of it! He wouldn’t of took this lyin’ down for two seconds …. ” Mr. Guirgis’ ear for the vernacular is perfect, the violent street obscenities fine-tuned. A charmer referred to as “nasty Norca” (Liza Colón-Zayas, another awesomely real actor in the troupe) is asked by the ever-patient Balthazar where she was the previous night between 10 p.m. and 9 a.m. “I was at your mother’s house fuckin’ her in her ass wid a strap on-dass where I was!” “You see anybody laughin’?” asks nasty Norca. Our Lady is a play of vignettes, and Mr. Guirgis takes us by surprise so much with each unfolding scene that this rave review comes with an unusual warning: Best to read no further, perhaps, if you don’t want to know who enters the escalating hysteria. Still here? I’ll try to give the atmosphere of remarkable things. We next meet someone named Rooftop, who’s taking confession. “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned-a lot, know what I’m sayin’?” The likable Rooftop-Ron Cephas Jones in a masterly, easeful performance – is nicely stoned, chronically unfaithful. His bitter ex-wife, Inez-played by a talented lady billed as Portia, the only actress I know with one name, unless we count Cher-describes Rooftop as a fink “who cherry-popped every Jordache bubble-butt from 96th on up.” But the gruff, disillusioned Father Lux of Mark Hammer grows impatient with his jittery sidetracks. “A confessional , not a conversational,” he protests. “Still,” Rooftop says to him, “even Hank Aaron hit a few off the practice tee before he stepped up to the rock-gotta marinate before ya grill, right?” “This is not a ‘cook-out’, sir,” says Father Lux. Much of Our Lady’s first act appears farcical and edgily dark-humored, and all good farces skirt the stereotypical. Enter Gail (Scott Hudson) and Flip (Russell G. Jones), bickering gay lovers. Flip, the lawyer returning to the hood for the wake, is back in the closet for the day. “Denial’s like a pair of Prada silk pajamas,” his lover chastises him. “The price is just too high.” Then there’s Edwin and Pinky (David Zayas and Al Roffe), who could be the dramatist’s nod to Of Mice and Men . Trapped and utterly frustrated Edwin cares lovingly for his simpleton brother, Pinky. He lives in crushing guilt. As a child, he accidentally threw a brick out of the window that landed on Pinky’s head. So the play rolls merrily along, particularly with the evening’s most hilarious turn by Elizabeth Canavan as Marcia, the asthmatic, violently neurotic niece of Sister Rose. “Why donchu hang out, have a Yodel?” Edwin says to her thoughtfully. “I’m allergic to chocolate,” Marcia replies. “How ’bout a slice of pizza?” “Pizza!” she erupts. “Hello? Cheese?! God, did someone throw a brick on your head, too?!” And, lastly-not to be left behind-there’s displaced, recessive Sonia, who’s always left behind. Melissa Feldman plays her in another perfect cameo performance from the ensemble. Nobody quite knows what Sonia is doing there. She’s from Connecticut. Act II has its laughter, to be sure, but it is the dramatist’s seamless transition to quiet revelation that makes him a poet of tender mercies. On the one hand, his characters in comic desperation explode with vitality and obscene anger. They’re at the bursting point, at the end of their rope. And how have you been feeling lately? On the other hand, they touch our hearts. Mr. Guirgis isn’t sentimental. He knows that life is hard and incomprehensible, and souls get killed, and saints reside in unlikely places. This is his third play, but if Stephen Adly Guirgis is a new voice, Our Lady of 121st Street is the best new play I’ve seen in a decade. Author- Stephen Adly Guirgis. Photo from https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/New-Works-by-Stephen-Adly-Guirgis-and-More-Slated-for-LAByrinth-Theater- Companys-2018-Barn-Series-20171212. Born to an Egyptian father and Irish American mother, Stephen Adly Guirgis grew up on the of NYC. Much like the characters in Our Lady… , he attended a parochial school in Harlem on 121st Street, and went on to attend the University at Albany, SUNY. In college, he pursued his interest in theatre, and after graduating in 1992, he joined the LAByrinth Theatre in NYC. Originally the Latino Actors Base, the company “expanded to represent the experiences of other minority groups”, growing to over 60 members. It was here that Guirgis started his playwrighting career, penning a one-act called Francisco and Benny, followed by the premier of his first full-length play, In Arabia We Would All Be Kings. He would go on to write nine more full-length plays, including Our Lady… and the Pulitzer Prize winning Between Riverside and Crazy, and is the co-creator of The Get Down on Netflix. After Guirgis won the Pulitzer Prize in 2015, Joe Dziemianowicz described how the playwright “always had a deep interest in colorful down-and- outers.” Most of his plays are dark comedies, dealing with the realities of life, often in NYC. In Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train, he told the story of Angel Cruz, who befriends a “charismatic serial killer”, Lucius Jenkins, while awaiting trial for killing the leader of a religious cult, while The Motherfucker with the Hat gives a glimpse into the lives of addicts in the 12-step program. Our Lady of 121st Street. Jesus Hopped the A Train; In Arabia, We'd All Be Kings. $11.99. $11.99. Publisher Description. Stephen Adly Guirgis has been hailed as one of the most promising playwrights at work in America today. A masterful poet of the downtrodden, his plays portray life on New York's hardscrabble streets in a manner both tender and unflinching, while continually exploring the often startling gulf between who we are and how we perceive ourselves. Gathered in this volume is his current off-Broadway hit, Our Lady of 121st Street , a comic portrait of the graduates of a Harlem Catholic school reunited at the funeral of a beloved teacher, along with his two previous plays: the philosophical jailhouse drama Jesus Hopped the A Train and In Arabia, We'd All Be Kings , an Iceman Cometh for the Giuliani era that looks at the effect of Times Square's gentrification on its less desirable inhabitants. Our Lady of 121st Street. Two great plays, and a pretty good one. All take place in and were originally produced between 1999-2003. Street people, gentrification, drugs, crime, poverty and hard luck figure in all three. Humanity with a large dose of humor and firecracker dialogue. Читать весь отзыв. LibraryThing Review. A beloved teacher, a nun, has died, leaving the current and former residents of her inner city neighborhood to mourn her passing. The characters are diverse in race, sexuality, and temperament. Life . Читать весь отзыв. Our Lady of 121st Street. This character-driven, dark comedy revolves around the death of Sister Rose, a nun who was much loved by an uptown neighborhood's residents. Guirgis is careful not to idealize the good Sister; it's clearly stated that she was an abuse survivor with an alcoholic bent. She could also be quite strict and was feared as much as she was loved. Yet, as one character notes, "so many people are turnin' up outta the woodwork [for her funeral] 'cuz, in their heart, they know. she was Our Lady." As the play begins, we discover that Sister Rose's body has disappeared; the funeral room where the empty casket sits is closed off as a crime scene and the mourners are forced to hang around waiting for news. Due to these extraordinary circumstances, emotions are running especially high. As the characters wait, they confront each other and themselves about their shared pasts and uncertain futures. Guirgis has a gift for capturing the absurdities of conversation -- the non-sequiturs as well as the emotional undercurrents running just beneath the words. His characters are quirky but all too human; they speak with a passion and urgency that cuts through a lot of the normal, everyday social niceties. This muscular language gives actors plenty to work with, and this cast certainly does not disappoint. Each member of the twelve-person ensemble is outstanding in his or her own special way, but there are a few performances that cry out for individual praise. Among these is Felix Solis as the alcoholic police detective, Balthazar. Solis conveys a wealth of emotion with the subtlest change of expression; still traumatized and guilt-ridden over the death of his son several years earlier, Balthazar's self-destructive behavior is painfully real and emotionally devastating. David Deblinger is hilarious as the "exceedingly gay" Gail, who accompanies his lover Flip (Russell G. Jones) to the funeral. Flip wants Gail to tone down his gayness a few notches, as Flip is not out to the childhood friends he'll soon be seeing, and Gail seizes on this to question their entire relationship. The character is a fascinating combination of major insecurities and virulent self-centeredness, and Deblinger somehow manages not to let his portrayal slip too far into stereotype; instead, he emotionally grounds the character so that his bittersweet journey within the play is clearly motivated. Another tour-de-force performance is handed in by David Zayas as Edwin, one of the many mourners who was profoundly influenced by Sister Rose. The actor's facial expressions are priceless, particularly in the Act I scene in which Edwin meets Sister Rose's niece, Marcia (Elizabeth Canavan). He also captures the conflicted emotions of anger and love towards his mentally damaged brother, Pinky (Al Roffe). It turns out that Edwin blames himself for his brother's condition (as a child, he threw a brick out the window and it landed on Pinky's head) and is attempting a kind of penance through self-abnegation. Many of the characters go to great lengths to communicate and even empathize with each other but, somehow, end up much more concerned about themselves than the people to whom they're reaching out. A brilliant example of this is when Marcia tries to comfort Edwin after an emotional blow-out with his brother. The two flirt with the possibility of a relationship, but Edwin pulls away out of loyalty and responsibility towards Pinky, and a frustrated Marcia cries out: "Well what good does that do me?!" Philip Seymour Hoffman is an actors' director, bringing out the best in the members of the ensemble in service to the play. There are several screaming matches in Our Lady of 121st Street and yet they never seem forced or excessive, thanks to Hoffman's tight direction and relentless pacing; every single shout is motivated and helps to build dramatic tension. Hoffman is equally adept at controlling the pauses and prolonged moments of silent action that allow for the emotional shifts occurring in the characters.