Frances McDormand leads stellar cast in ‘Good People’

NEW YORK — David Lindsay-Abaire, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of Rabbit Hole, has crafted a touching new work of raw human emotion, and thanks to a superb cast, headed by the indomitable force that is Frances McDormand, Good People is the first must-see show of the new Broadway season.

McDormand portrays Margaret, a down-on-her-luck woman living in Southie, Boston. She has a daughter with special needs and hardly any financial or moral support. She needs her landlady (Dottie, played by the hilarious Estelle Parsons) to watch her child while she makes barely $9 an hour at the local dollar store.

To say that Margaret is a product of these economically difficult times is an understatement, and yet she never feels like an archetype or a theatrical creation. Lindsay-Abaire imbues her with a sense of self-worth and dignity that shines through in McDormand’s marvelous work.

After Margaret is fired from her job by a reluctant manager (Patrick Carroll, with perhaps the best Boston accent of the bunch), she is unexpectedly greeted with the reemergence of an old high school fling. Mike, played by Tate Donovan, grew up in Southie, dated Margaret for a few weeks and then moved away, physically and emotionally. He earned a medical degree and then came back to Boston, though he is a changed man when the audience first meets him. Margaret calls him “lace-curtain,” and it annoys him to no end.

At its heart, Good People is a story of class structure, neighborhood relations and how the two are intertwined. It’s not a thesis paper on the current economic crisis, but it does succeed in putting a face on the national difficulties.

Margaret is a real character with real problems; she’s rough around the edges, sporting a fast mouth and a different opinion on what are proper manners. Mike, now enjoying the fruits of his academic work, feels pulled between the reality of his old life and the reality of his new life with his wife (played by Renee Elise Goldberry) and child.

Can a person truly leave his or her old neighborhood behind? Can one move on and move up? If one stays behind, does that mean that person is trapped?

Lindsay-Abaire attempts to discuss, if not answer, some of these questions, and along the way he treats the audience with witty dialogue and opportunities for his actors to shine. This is all thanks in part to Daniel Sullivan’s expert direction. The two-hour show flies by, and the company of each and every character is sorely missed by play’s end.

Good People is the strongest play to hit the Rialto in some time. It features brilliant writing that is character-driven and never caricaturish. It features a director’s work that is spot-on and laser-like. And, perhaps most of all, it features performances that are strong in their steadiness. There is a sense of geographical history among these characters and that’s all because the actors make it look easy on the stage of the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre.

Parsons finds a pathetic loneliness in her one-liners, while Donovan feels organic, like he truly is a person with a foot in two neighborhoods. Becky Ann Baker also offers some great work as Margaret’s friend, Jean.

Although Good People, by its own name, feels plural in nature, what with describing the realities of a tough neighborhood like Southie, the play is owned by the character of Margaret. Sublimely, McDormand turns out to be a perfect fit to bring this woman to life. She is to be respected and never pitied, hurt and never truly mended. She’s conflicted, for as many times as she does something right, Margaret also follows the wrong path with potentially dire consequences.

In other words, this main character is real, and McDormand should dust off her mantel, because there will soon be a Tony Award to share the company of her Academy Award.

• Good People
  

• By David Lindsay-Abaire
  

• Directed by Daniel Sullivan
  

• Starring Frances McDormand, Tate Donovan, Patrick Carroll, Renee Elise Goldberry, Becky Ann Baker and Estelle Parsons
  

• Playing at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre at 261 W. 47th St. in New York City.

• Running time: two hours, five minutes
  

• Rating:

Revised