“Good People” centers around a question. A single mother from a lower-class background is forced to consider whether her attempt at goodness, through what some of the play’s characters see as stubborn pride, actually made her daughter’s life more difficult. And, on a broader scale, she has to question her definition of what makes someone “good people,” weighing it against definitions suggested and demonstrated by her friends and acquaintances.
At the play’s start, Margie, the mother, loses her low-wage job at the local dollar store and is told by her friend and landlord that she’ll be kicked out if she can’t keep up on her rent payments. Running out of options, she decides to ask her high school ex-boyfriend Mike for a job. An affluent doctor, he was one of the few able to make it out of their South Boston neighborhood and find a better life.
Working from a script by David Lindsay-Abaire (best known for the Putlizer Prize-winning “Rabbit Hole”), Actors Theatre does a fine job bringing “Good People” to life, especially considering they’re performing on an unfamiliar stage after leaving the Herberger Theater Center a year ago.
One of the things that most impressed me was how spot-on the dialogue was. Several members of the cast told me they only rehearsed “Good People” for three weeks before it opened, but none of the lines felt forced and nobody stepped on another character’s toes or cut off their laughter.
The performance is structured around strong, emotional acting that carries through each scene in various degrees. The characters are the type you can relate to in one scene and despise in another; regardless of whether or not they are good people, we know at least that they are real people.
Katie McFadzen does a solid job in the lead role of Margie, making her as unsympathetic as she should be while still encouraging the audience to root for her. McFadzen’s Margie toes the line between obnoxious and pitiable, somehow giving a fully objective view of her situation even when it’s presented from her limited perspective.
Mike’s wife Kate, played by Shanique S. Scott, is the most enjoyable of the characters. She’s fun and funny at first, remaining understanding about Katie’s plight even as tensions rise between Mike and the two women. Kate’s introduction halfway through the play is refreshing after several scenes of Margie and her friends bickering.
When an argument between Margie, Mike and Kate nearly comes to blows, Kate stays rational, posing a common-sense question to Margie that highlights the true themes of the play. Kate is a good anchor for audience members trying to find their way through Margie’s life, which could seem completely relatable or totally foreign.
The scenes featuring Margie and her friends playing bingo were filled out with great props, as were the scenes at Mike and Kate’s house. The one thing missing was more in the way of set pieces, though. The stage had enough to make each scene believable, but it was often very minimalist.
A lot of the set was represented by three revolving panels at the back of the stage that could be turned to show different backgrounds — a single panel might have images for a messy kitchen counter, an older couple playing bingo and an elegant staircase.
Depending on where you were sitting (chairs were arranged on three sides of the square stage), these panels could have added a lot to each scene or gone largely unnoticed. From my seat along stage right, the panels were a bit distracting — a cool idea, but too complicated for what they added.
And while I would have liked to see more than just a different table and chairs in each scene, this wasn’t a play that called for much more than interesting dialogue. Anticipating how the different character dynamics would play out is enough to keep anyone captivated.
Actors Theater has been putting out a lot of strong, emotional theater lately, and “Good People” is no exception. Offering both laughs and tears, the play will make you think hard about the roles of luck and hard work in your life and the lives around you.
“Good People” is being performed at the Arizona Opera Center through May 11. General admission tickets are $36 and can be purchased on the Actors Theatre website.
Contact the blogger at jasmine.barta@asu.edu
Editor’s note: Curtain Critic is the Downtown Devil weekly theater review.
