Between Riverside and Crazy: devils may chase us but always we are free
04 Dec 2019

by Drew Rowsome - Photos by Dahlia Katz

The Coal Mine Theatre is, by virtue of its size, always an intimate space. To get to one's seat for Between Riverside and Crazy, one actually has to walk through the set, a hyper-realistic creation of a home. There is a tiny Christmas tree (despite the play being set in summer), photographs standing in frames, throw cushions on comfortable looking chairs that have seen use, a double bed, and even a plate of cookies. Each of those things become important and winding through them at intermission to regain my seat in the circling configuration - the resemblance to a boxing ring is not accidental - I idly pondered when the bed was going to come into play, and what the Christmas tree meant.

Yes, I was disconnected during the first act. Not that Between Riverside and Crazy isn't well written with humorous asides and a lot of intense drama teased out in sly surprises, and certainly not that the acting wasn't perfectly pitched and nuanced, it just didn't seem to be adding up to anything. It was very entertaining, but I was avoiding comparing it to a television police procedural. That is not a diss, just not what I expected from the Coal Mine. Or from a play that won playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis 2017's Pulitzer Prize.

Then the second act kicked in and Between Riverside and Crazy became crazy in the very best sense. A new character adds a surreal supernatural (or is it?) element and the play moves into the characters' heads (or does it?). Plot elements, character layers, themes and symbols are suddenly jumbled, picked apart and reassembled. It is stunning and deliciously disorienting. And when the climax arrives, it is cathartic in a startling and surprisingly sweet way. It's ballsy to use the entire first act as a set-up but Guirgis and this sterling cast are in it for the long haul and happy to sucker punch the audience.

Recounting the plot will only ruin the fun of the first act as casual asides become revelations and murky motivations become clear before becoming murkier. A sight gag, that earns a big laugh, becomes a heartbreaking insight that says more than pages of dialogue ever could. It is very clever and riveting in the hands of the remarkable cast and director Kelli Fox. Suffice it to say that nothing is more desirable than a rent-controlled New York apartment. Unless it is an expensive engagement ring. Or revenge. Or integrity. Or family. Or walking the dog. Or a leper colony in Brazil. Nothing is black and white, and for a play that uses racism as a central metaphor, Guirgis is showing us just how in flux all morality is.

Alexander Thomas (The Royale) as retired police officer Walter "Pops" Washington is the centre around which all revolves. Thomas treats the text like an operatic score with reprises of statements stood on their head only to erupt in arias both tragic and frightening. It is a towering performance roiling inside an everyman. And to our regret and joy, he draws us in, again and again, only to cast us out. Pops' son, Jai Jai Jones as Junior, has learned from the master and is coiled and seething beneath a swaggering demeanour. The apartment, the family, is also home to Nabil Rajo's Oswaldo, a friend of Junior's, whose comic banter turns into a despairing act of shocking violence. Zarrin Darnell-Martin as Junior's girlfriend Lulu, who may be an accounting student or may be a hooker, is sexy and sweet while projecting an innocence that very well may be manipulative.

The family invites Pops' former work partner Detective O'Connor and her romantic partner Lieutenant Caro over for dinner. Claire Armstrong (Yaga, The Crackwalker, Liver, Rock) cares deeply for Pops and their shared past, but has an agenda that is brutally painful for her and to Pops. Armstrong transitions from quiet concern to thundering outrage and anger and then back in smooth spectacular arcs. Sergio Di Zio is all smarmy seductive charm, laughing a little too hard, before sliding the knife he has been unsuccessfully hiding in deep. The other visitor, Allegra Fulton (Julius Caesar) as Church Lady, walks a bizarre and tricky line between deeply comic, outrageously sexy, and downright spooky. Fulton is a marvel and her pivotal role would have stolen the show if she hadn't modulated it so precisely that the character triumphs over the fireworks.

Though we only learn the ultimate fate of two of the characters, each is so rich that we long to know what happens to them. All we know is that their futures are ambiguous. No-one is a hero, no-one is a villain, and each will perform both acts of kindness and cruel acts out of self-interest. At one point or another each of them utters a profound statement about the contradictory value of life. But Church Lady sums it up best, "Devils may chase us but always we are free."