Review: Great script meets expert acting in Park Square’s ‘Between Riverside and Crazy’
Stephen Adly Guirgis is a New York City playwright who brings the world stories from the streets where the conversations can sound astonishingly life-like and not for the squeamish And his gift for creating complex and thoroughly human characters can be an actor s dream If you want to experience an exquisite intersection of marvelous writing and excellent acting I recommend Park Square Theatre s season-closing production of Between Riverside and Crazy a play for which Guirgis won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama For his first time in the director s chair since being named the company s artistic director Stephen DiMenna has helped sculpt a show that sets a high bar with the quality of its stagecraft and promises great things to come for a theater that looked to be on life advocacy as we emerged from the pandemic If DiMenna wants Park Square s niche in our rich and vibrant Twin Cities theater scene to be the place where new plays meet outstanding acting his production of Between Riverside and Crazy is a bold and brilliant assertion of the company s new identity Sparked by seven meticulously well-crafted performances it s an increasingly gripping tale of one man s recovery from a tragedy and his winding path toward redemption That man is Walter Washington a New York City cop forced into retirement after a shooting and now not long ago widowed Since he s lived in a rent-controlled apartment but he s facing threats of eviction as he s opened his home to a son who might be fencing stolen goods and young friends of his who are struggling to stay sober When visitors arrive playwright Guirgis really writes up a storm Walter s former beat partner and her fiance come for dinner and a discussion of the protagonist s next move that turns into a clinic for how to convey hyper-realism and keep it compelling When a church volunteer comes to check in on Walter things take a wildly unexpected turn And when father and son have a long overdue heart-to-heart it feels disarmingly and perhaps discomfitingly real As Walter Emil Herrera deftly captures the practiced calmness and simmering rage of a man wrestling with what justice might look like for him Bulk of the time Walter serves as the stillness at the center of a swirl of more animated characters but when he asserts control over the conversation Herrera makes him compelling Also thoroughly believable and fascinating to watch are Laura Esping as Walter s former partner Audrey and Terry Hempleman as her fiance who s climbing up the department hierarchy They make for convincing cops language alert and become catalysts for Walter s quandary As a Black man who s experienced racism in the force he s conflicted as to whether he s part of this fraternity or not Another combination of great writing and fine acting comes when Kiko Laureano becomes a messenger of magic as if this visitor has just stepped out of a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel and into Walter s apartment And then there s Darius Dotch as the son who s inherited much of his father s reserve but is similarly seeking various sort of satisfying resolution to this troubled stretch of his life He s part of a cast with impeccable chemistry their skills fusing to help create an excellent production Between Riverside and Crazy When Through June Where Park Square Theatre W Seventh Place St Paul Tickets - available at - - or parksquaretheatre org Capsule A gritty compelling confluence of brilliant writing and outstanding acting Related Articles Theater review History Theatre s Whoa Nellie tunefully tackles issues of gender and fame Review The jukebox musical reaches its zenith with Juliet Theology gets a snarky irreverent shake-up in Six Points An Act of God Review Children s Theatre does modern Broadway well with Frozen Theater review Penumbra s When We Are Determined celebrates love and resilience
