Published: Tuesday, February 22, 2011, 1:50 PM
For those who wonder ?Why me?? when they miss a green light or drop their cell phone in a toilet, here?s a play that puts matters into perspective.
?Mercy and the Firefly,? having its world premiere at Luna Stage Company in West Orange, is a grim look at life?s true unfortunates. Playwright Amy Hartman puts some pockets of humor into her hard-hitting drama, but they?re watch pocket-sized. For a vast amount of the time, theatergoers will get a well-written tale, but one that?s searing and harrowing.
Mercy is a Latina with an ironic name, given that she?s killed a mute classmate on the streets of South Central Los Angeles ? where, we?re told, ?the Latinos want to wipe out the blacks.?
Now, out of genuine fear, Mercy anxiously spouts a rap poem about what she?s done. Lucy, a nun, overhears her and feels for the kid. She helps her escape by driving both of them thousands of miles to her mother Vivian?s house. All this means is that Mercy is out of the South Central frying pan and into the fire of Homestead, Pa. ? an equally distressed part of the world.
To quote Robert Frost, ?Home is where they have to take you in.? Vivian isn?t happy that she?s harboring a criminal but, as she says with pride, ?I?m no rat.? This is a society where ?squealing? is an unpardonable crime.
Lucy must arrange for someone to watch the teen when she?s not around and her mother?s at work. (Even Vivian?s occupation is depressing: She cooks last meals for condemned prisoners on death row.) So Lucy enlists Oliver, a friend she saw through drug rehabilitation after he?d become a male prostitute in order to buy heroin. He doesn?t want to help, but Lucy is calling in her markers.
On a stage that?s shaped like a barbell, Cheryl Katz directs in straightforward fashion, and meets all the play?s needs. She?s cast it impeccably, starting with Marcie Henderson as Lucy. With cigarette in hand, this Sister Lucy will never be confused with Audrey Hepburn in ?The Nun?s Story.? She?s a recent convert because, she explains, ?The church made me feel safer. I found the one place I fit.?
She later admits to another reason: ?I started going to Mass and confession to have someone to talk to.?
Henderson conveys the high-on-life feeling of those who have recently found religion. She also shows single-minded fervor in getting her mother and Oliver to do whatever she wants, as if they?re working for her. The glint in Henderson?s eye displays her belief that she has the answers to any situation. Those eyes, however, will eventually spout tears; Henderson is able to make them flow at the precise moment that they must come.
As Mercy, Alicia Rivas potently delivers her opening rap speech, which is the last we?ll hear from her for a long time. She becomes as mute as the girl she killed. Rivas makes Mercy inscrutable ? a kid who challenges others to figure her out. Or is she quiet because she?s terrified?
Eventually she will speak, and Rivas induces chills with the way she snarls at Lucy, ?I see you, Godzilla, for who you truly be. I got the 411 on you.? Her sneer underlines that Mercy doesn?t believe in anyone?s goodness.
Vivian is ideally cast. No one in the state is better than Andrea Gallo to play a working class, careworn, down-to-earth woman. Christopher Daftsios excels at portraying the arm-clutching, foot-shuffling junkie.
By the time the play ends, an audience may well by crying for Mercy ? and crying for mercy, too. People who are out for a night of sheer entertainment and wind up at Luna may well say, ?Why me??
Mercy and the Firefly
Where: Luna Stage Company, 555 Valley Road, West Orange
When: Through March. 13. Thursdays at 7:30 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 2 p.m.
How much: $30 for Saturdays, $25 for Fridays and Sundays, and $20 for Thursdays. Call (973) 395-5551 or visit lunastage.org.
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