Good People’s Orange County Premiere makes at least two things abundantly clear. First of all that David Lindsay-Abaire’s 2011 Broadway hit is easily one of the past decade’s finest, most compelling new plays, and second, that Chance Theater continues to reign supreme among intimate OC stages.

 Amanda Zarr stars sensationally as Margie (the “g” in her name is as hard as her will to survive the mean streets of South Boston), a 40something single mom who finds herself suddenly jobless after Stevie (Alec Kenney), the son of a childhood friend and manager of the local Dollar Store where Margie’s been cashiering, fires her from her $9.20 an hour job despite her pleas that he give her an eighth warning instead of a pink slip.

Though Stevie’s own boss would likely see the reason for Margie’s perpetual tardiness—a mentally retarded adult child cared for by a landlady whose frequent sleeping in causes Margie to arrive an hour late—as mere irresponsibility, she herself considers it just one of the unavoidable realities of a bad luck-cursed life.

 Unwilling to take Stevie’s suggestion that she apply for line work at the local Gillette factory, Margie is persuaded by Bingo buddies Dottie and Jean (Karen Webster and Bridgette Campbell) to pay an office visit to a high school boyfriend, one who luck will have it has escaped from “Southie” to a successful medical practice, marriage to a considerably younger literature professor at Boston University, a five-year-old daughter, and an elegant home in the posh neighborhood of Chestnut Hill.

When Dr. Mike (Robert Foran) declares himself unable to offer Margie a job (she is, after all, unqualified for any kind of medical office work), his feisty ex-sweetheart wangles an invitation to his upcoming birthday party in hopes that one of the assembled guests might have a line on a possible job.

What Margie finds when she arrives at Mike’s suburban manse will not be revealed here. Suffice it to say that it provides Good People with as edge-of-your-seat a second act as anyone in search of gripping theater could possibly wish for.

Lindsay-Abaire’s 2007 Pulitzer Prize-winning Rabbit Hole managed to find humor in the most tragic of circumstances. Good People’s blue-collar bingo gals generate even more laughter, salty-tongued Margie included, but laughs so seamlessly woven into a story of secrets-that-might-not-be-secrets and lies-that-might-not-be-lies that the playwright achieves something akin to life itself.

Zarr delivers a heart-wrenching star turn as toughest-cookie-in-town Margie, a combustible mix of acerbity and pluck and heart and guts that merits notice when awards season arrives.

Supporting performances could not be more terrific under Jocelyn A. Brown’s incisive, ingenious direction.

Foran’s Mike starts off cool and collected, but just wait till decades of repressed anger and resentment erupt and his carefully cultivated “lace curtain” façade starts to crack.

 Webster’s squawking old bird of a Dottie and Campbell’s tell-it-like-it-is tough cookie of a Jean are winners as well, Kenney’s heart-of-gold Stevie is such a sweetie, he deserves a spin-off of his own, and Taj Johnson earns her own Act Two applause as a woman making unexpected, unwelcome discoveries.

Scenic design whiz Christopher Scott Murillo outdoes himself with a multi-locale set that reveals multiple wonders during Brown’s cleverly choreographed scene changes, with Jeff Brewer’s vivid lighting, Bruce Goodrich’s just-right costumes, Megan Hill’s high-end, low-end props (snaps to Bingo paraphernalia and bunnies), and sound designer Darryl B. Hovis’s mood-heightening music and effects completing a grade-A production design.

 Katie Dumas and Lena Romano are dramaturgs. Wade Williamson is stage manager and KC Read-Fisher is assistant stage manager. Dialect coach Glenda Morgan Brown deserves snaps for some character-defining “Southie” accents.

Good People is that rarity among plays, one that not only surprises, entertains, and engrosses but gets even better when you go back knowing what you didn’t suspect the first time round. Expect to be thinking and talking about the latest Chance Theater winner long after its final fade to black.

Chance Theater, 5522 E. La Palma Ave., Anaheim Hills.
www.chancetheater.com

–Steven Stanley
April 28, 2018
Photos: Doug Catiller, True Image Studio

Tags: Chance Theater, David Lindsay-Abaire, Orange County Theater Review