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Once again Playwrights Horizons is presenting an important work by Pulitzer Prize winner Bruce Norris (The Pain and the Itch, Clybourne Park, The Qualms), who reminds us why he is one of our most provocative playwrights. This time out, Norris tackles a thorny issue that gets little attention – our system for isolating sex offenders who have served their time but are placed on a registry that severely limits their life options, often forever. Because of residency restrictions designed to restrict their contact with children, they often end up in group homes in areas that don’t want them with neighbors who demonstrate their opposition by harassing them in a variety of ways, some violent. We meet four such men in a church-sponsored home in downstate Illinois. Fred (Francis Guinan), a seemingly kindly man in his seventies confined to a mobility scooter, is a former piano teacher who molested two young male students. Dee (K. Todd Freeman), a former dancer, had a two-year relationship with a 14-year-old Lost Boy in a touring version of Peter Pan. The religious Felix (Eddie Torres), who molested his young daughter, avoids the others and prays a lot. Gio (Glenn Davis), a younger man whose crime was “merely” statutory rape of a girl who lied about her age, is a Level One offender, whose name will be removed from the registry in a matter of months. He resents being thrown together with Level Three offenders whose registration will be permanent. Ivy (Susanna Guzman) is the tough overworked parole officer who checks on them weekly. On the day the action takes place, Fred is visited by Andy (Tim Hopper), one of the boys he molested 30 years ago, and Andy’s wife Em (Sally Murphy). Andy is there to confront Fred and get him to sign a document listing all his crimes against Andy, including one he denies. Their visit does not yield the results he wants. Ivy has bad news for the four – the local jurisdiction has expanded their no-go zone, which will eliminate access to their supermarket and bus stop. She has worse news for Felix, who has been caught going to the library and using the internet. We also meet Effie (Gabi Samels), Gio’s young co-worker at Staples, a character whose inclusion in the play seems unwarranted to me. Andy has conveniently left his cellphone behind, which gives him an excuse to return without his wife. The second meeting between Andy and Fred becomes explosive. In addition, there is a tragic development which I thought had been telegraphed rather clumsily. The play raises many uncomfortable questions about punishment, forgiveness and victimhood that we are left to ponder. The production’s greatest strength is the high level of the acting. The entire ensemble is outstanding. Todd Rosenthal’s set is appropriately grim and Clint Ramos’s costumes are apt. Pam MacKinnon, who has directed other Norris successes, seems to have a special affinity for his work. If you seek a thought-provoking evening, look no further. Running time: two hours 30 minutes including intermission.
The cast is excellent, and the writing and direction are first-rate. It seems that Andy, the adult who was abused as a child, is the central character, but he isn't quite that; the play starts with his rather civil face-to-face with Fred, the man who abused him. But of course, Andy's already gone through a lot before the play begins to have gotten himself here (with his wife) in the first place, some of which effort we hear about. It seemed to me that Fred and two other offenders (the fourth one, Felix, follows his own trajectory) are, more than Andy, a kind of aggregate central character. While an "ensemble" structure tends to dilute the concentrated drama a single central character can evoke, the play nonetheless elicits strong engagement and emotional responses by its arguments about criminal justice and from the intense, climactic confrontation of the three "central" offenders and Andy. As he's done in previous plays, Bruce Norton does a terrific job individualizing the characters through action and speech and by constructing scenes where several characters are on stage at once talking and talking over each other. I point this out because I see so many plays that consist of scenes with only two characters talking to each other even when there are other characters in the play—and sometimes even on stage. I think Andy's wife is underwritten and represents a missed opportunity because she is neither abuser nor abused. She seems distracted and almost jokey in the opening sequence—behavior that is understandable enough, but that begs for more development. I assume, for example, she knew about Andy's history when she married him; otherwise, she'd might have been angry at him for having kept it a secret from her. And, by the way, how long does it take for a body to decompose to emit such an intense smell? The play's action lasts less than a day.
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