Between Riverside and Crazy

Between Riverside and Crazy

Second Stage Theatre

February 20, 2015

      Photos courtesy of Second Stage Theatre

I finally saw Between Riverside and Crazy, and am sorry I waited so long.  I saw advertisements for months, and read a very good review when it played at The Atlantic Theater Company this past summer and fall.  I read that the Second Stage Theatre’s production was a well-produced continuation of that run with mostly the same cast.  I sat in the theatre, waiting for the show to start, listening to the peculiar meditation-style music and realizing that from where I was sitting I was not going to be able to see all the action of the play.  The set was an interior with multiple rooms that were not in full view from my seat in house left.  I felt joy and excitement when the lights dimmed, the music gained some bass and rhythm, and the set spun on turn table to reveal all three rooms of the apartment, bringing the action down stage center.  I was not the only one to applaud Walt Spangler’s realistic, dilapidated, high-ceiling rendition of a Riverside Drive apartment.  Before a word was spoken, this set pulled me into a realistic and stark world that prepared me for the genuine depiction of the human experience that was to come. 

Stephan McKinley Henderson, Victor Almanzar, and Ron Cephas Jones 

in "Between Riverside and Crazy." Photo: Carol Rosegg

 Act I started with sharp dialogue that defined the characters right off the bat.  The main conflict was introduced in scene two as the backstory of the main character, Pops, played flawlessly by Stephen McKinley Henderson, was revealed.  The action dramatically rose at the end of the first act as Oswaldo, played meticulously by Victor Almanzar, goes off his sobriety and gets violent.  I took a minute to reflect during the intermission and realized that I was deeply involved in the world of this play.  It was real and topical.  Each point of view of the conflict was expressed so clearly that I was able to see the push and pull within each of the characters as their struggle and debate kept the action of the play moving forward.  In the second act a new character was introduced that turned the plot around, caused the conflict to explode, then calm, then pounce voraciously.

The blurb I had read for months about this play says, “City Hall is demanding more than his signature, the landlord wants him out… the struggle to hold on to one of the last great rent stabilized apartments on Riverside Drive collides with old wounds…”  This made me think the play was about the gentrification of New York City.  It is not about that at all.  It is about integrity and pride, healing and second chances.  It is not about the apartment.  Playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis (well known for his play The Motherf**ker with the Hat) skillfully crafted an edgy world full of grit and warmth.  Director Austin Pendleton peeled away every layer of that world with actors who delved into themselves and connected to one another with an amazing depth of reality and truth.

This is an important play... a must see!  Three cheers to Second Stage Theatre for mounting The Atlantic Theater Company’s production and keeping it alive.  

Domenick Danza