Columns

Column: ‘Our Lady of 121st Street’ By Susan Parker

Tuesday March 21, 2006

In the three years I’ve attended San Francisco State as an MFA student, I’ve developed a consuming interest in the theater. Brian Thorstenson, whose play Shadow Crossing is now at the Berkeley City Club, was the first instructor to inspire me in the craft of playwriting. In his course, “Reading and Viewing Plays,” we read and saw half a dozen live performances, and watched several on tape. We analyzed and critiqued, then copied scenes from each play, put them into our own words and voices, and made them our stories. 

The following semester I took a class from Anne Galjour, a local playwright known for her acting and Louisiana-based monologues. I enrolled in a seminar taught by Michelle Carter, whose play Ted Kaczynski Killed People with Bombs has won several international awards, and is now in pre production in London. Last semester I participated in a workshop led by Roy Conboy, a nationally known Chicano playwright who is the chair of SFSU’s Theater Arts Department and head of the graduate playwriting program. 

Before enrolling at San Francisco State I’d attended a few dozen plays. But because of these instructors and their encouragement, I’ve had the pleasure of viewing dozens and dozens of staged productions, both on my own and as required coursework. I’ve been to the Bravo, the Marsh, Berkeley Rep and the Aurora. I’ve attended plays at the Magic, Theatre Rhinoceros, the Artaud and the Geary. I’ve gone to productions staged by A.C.T., the Shotgun Players, Word for Word, Campo Santo, Central Works, and the Red Gate Performance Collective. I’ve gotten to know some actors, directors, and stage managers, dramaturges and costume designers, lighting and sound engineers. I’ve been captivated and enthralled by the collaboration and passion, the hard work and commitment, the talent and generosity required in order to get words off the page and onto the stage. 

Last night I attended Our Lady of 121st Street, a production currently showing at SF Playhouse in San Francisco. Written by New York playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis and directed by Playhouse Artistic Director Bill English, this is a rapidly told, 10-scene, hard-boiled, episodic drama. As English states in the playbill, Our Lady explores the “spiritual needs of humanity: the struggle to find hope in the face of despair, forgiveness in the face of bitterness, faith in the face of doubt, and love in the face of hate.” He forgets to mention that it is also uproariously funny, flip, tender, and emotional. 

Guirgis places his 12 ethnically and socially diverse characters within a funeral home, a bar, and a Catholic church in Harlem, waiting Godot-like for the memorial service to begin for their teacher, friend, co-worker, and relative Sister Rose. But Sister Rose’s body is missing and as they await its recovery, these former friends, current lovers, ex-spouses, siblings, rivals, and strangers are forced to confront their darkest fears, their emptiness, shame, and longing.  

From Brian, Anne, Michelle and Roy, I’ve learned that every protagonist has to take the audience somewhere, and by doing so viewers will journey with them. Along the way the audience should learn about themselves and the human condition. Each of the characters in Our Lady of 121st Street starts in a place they don’t want to be. Their challenge is to change. Some do and some don’t. A few embrace their pain, acknowledge their weaknesses and move on. Others remain where they are and lose hope. Just like real life, like you and me and all of mankind, they have aspirations that are realized and dreams that are crushed. Whipped into a frenzy by quick turns of plot, hilarious juxtapositions, and machinegun-style, Mamet-esque dialogue, I cannot remember when I’ve enjoyed a theatrical performance more. And it was not just me. The small, intimate playhouse erupted in laughter, tears and a standing ovation when the seemingly brief, two-hour production came to a rollicking, soulful conclusion. 

I’m not exaggerating. Go see it for yourself at the SF Playhouse, 536 Sutter (between Powell and Mason). (415) 677-9596, www.sfplayhouse.org.