Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven

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[avatar user=”Darryl Reilly” size=”96″ align=”left” ] Darryl Reilly, Critic[/avatar]

Mr. Skittles, an onstage goat’s actions prove to be a crucial plot point in Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven and testifies to Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis’ theatrical brilliance. This swirling and gripping three hour saga is set in an Upper West Side Manhattan government funded residence for women, “Hope House.” With brief references to President Donald Trump and New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio, finally here is the searing major American play that truly reflects the present time.

It’s structured as short scenes of differing tones crisply blending into the next with cinematic flair. Mr. Guirgis’ trademark earthy, often very funny and moving dialogue which is rooted in the vernacular of the streets of New York is a joy to experience.

I give you five dollars for Hot Cocoa, you come back with no change, wiping Barbecue Potato Chip remains off your face — Buttered Roll in your back pocket, pack of Twinkies up your sleeve.

If I ever went back to dick, it’d be Tom Petty. If, like, he wasn’t dead. I never met him, but you could just tell: he gets it.

Rockaway Rosie here, she a straight up Archie Bunker Bitch, if it was up to her, Me & Munchie and Melba would be her slaves, peeling her powder white ass some purple grapes off the vine –

Besides Mr. Skittles, there are 18 other characters of different races, ages, genders and sexualities. They’re a cross section of the downtrodden and those involved with aiding them. Ex-convicts, the homeless, an Iraq war veteran, drug addicts, battered women and their children, social workers, staff members, law officers, a trans woman who incites divisiveness, and a wily Catholic priest who once threw a man off the roof of a building are all vividly realized by Mr. Guirgis’ supreme command of dramatic writing. Each one of these many figures are majestically fleshed out, some in great detail. Guirgis goes beyond offering a loving mosaic of character studies by gradually injecting a suspenseful narrative that reaches a bleak yet hopeful conclusion.

The titanic cast of Victor Almanzar, David Anzuelo, Elizabeth Canavan, Sean Carvajal, Patrice Johnson Chevannes, Molly Collier, Liza Colón-Zayas, Esteban Andres Cruz, Greg Keller, Wilemina Olivia-Garcia, Kristina Poe, Neil Tyrone Pritchard, Elizabeth Rodriguez, Andrea Syglowski, Benja Kay Thomas, Viviana Valeria, Pernell Walker, and Kara Young all offer rich performances emitting tragedy and comedy.

Director John Ortiz fulfills Guirgis’ vision with his energetic though focused staging, achieving momentum, visual variety and emotional force. One cranes one’s head to take in all of Mr. Ortiz’s panorama. It’s performed all over scenic designer Narelle Sissons’ two-level masterpiece of a crumbling Manhattan building with actions taking place outside as well on park benches and alleys. Mary Louise Geiger’s lighting design melds starkness with artfulness.

Composer Elisheba Ittoop’s stimulating score adds to the effectiveness of the scene transitions. Her music and sound effects are rendered by her bold design. That costume designer Alexis Forte clothes 18 diverse characters with realism and individual style is remarkable. UnkleDave’s Fight House contributes plentiful and riveting stage combat sequences.

While emulating the sensibilities and techniques of Lanford Wilson’s Balm in Gilead and Hot L Baltimore, Guirgis in Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven takes the dramatization of contemporary disenfranchised lives to a magnificent level.

Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven (through January 5, 2020)

Atlantic Theater Company in a co-production with LAByrinth Theater Company

Linda Gross Theater, 336 West 20^th Street, in Manhattan

For tickets, call 866-811-4111 or visit http://www.labtheater.org

Running time: three hours including one intermission