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In Praise of Gloucester
by Ellen Carpenter
Blue Collar reviewed August 5, 2004
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Israel Horovitz's plays must be bad for the Gloucester, Massachusetts tourism industry. Horovitz surely has some fondness for the small New England town — he founded the Gloucester Stage Company in 1979 and he still lives there part time — but that definitely does not show in his work. He overlooks the selling points of Gloucester — the white sandy beaches, the seafood shacks with hot fried clams — and instead focuses on the town’s gloomy underbelly. His Gloucester suffers from high unemployment and its citizens lead despondent existences; there is teenage pregnancy, extramarital affairs, drug abuse and AIDS. Depressing, sure, but all this makes for great theater.
The Barefoot Theatre Company explores this dark, dishonorable side of Gloucester with its riveting production, Blue Collar , which includes the New York premier of Horovitz’s Sins of the Mother and an excerpt of Horovitz’s 1986 play North Shore Fish . Both plays center on the empty lives of the clock-punching workers in the Gloucester fish industry and by pairing the two, we are able to see how little the town has changed in 17 years.
North Shore Fish opens in the main plant of a frozen fish processing company where six women are busy packaging fish sticks and singing along to the Aretha Franklin classic “Do Right Woman, Do Right Man.” Their morning banter starts off somewhat stiff and it feels as if the hairnet-clad women are just reading their lines, but they quickly fall into a groove. The women, along with the plant manager Salvatore “Sally” Morella and lackey Alfred “Porker” Martino complain about “doing the same thing, day in and day out” at the plant since they were in their teens, but when they learn the plant is closing, they’re distraught. “This is all I know how to do,” remarks one of the women. “Me, my mother, my grandmother. All of us… I have nothing left to teach my children.”
The play feels real and the characters, believable. Thanks to drab costumes and (for the most part) dead-on accents, the actors all look and sound like they could be factory workers living in Gloucester. (Either many of the cast members are from Massachusetts or they had a wonderful dialect coach.) Chris Walen, who resembles a Wahlberg brother and sounds a little like Adam Sandler, offers a standout performance as the adorable dunce Porker. And Victoria Malvagno’s portrayal of Florence, a bitter woman who is having an affair with the womanizing manager, is honest and moving. Francisco Solorzano’s direction is well-paced, and the action flows easily from moments of light comedy to tense fighting.
Sins of the Mother takes place years later, but the only difference between present-day Gloucester and 1980s Gloucester is that its residents now use phrases like “wicked smart” and “what’s the dif?” That same fish factory is still closed and each week the locals come to the old plant to have their unemployment cards signed. The play begins in the middle of an exchange between Bobby Maloney (T.S. Joseph), an older, out-of-work plant worker, and Douggie Shimmatarro (Francisco Solorzano), a twenty-something Gloucester native who has recently returned to the area to find a job. Their exchange is colloquial and very small town focused — Bobby asks Douggie if he is related to the Shimmatarros who live on Riverdale and Douggie explains that he is a Fort Shimmatarro. “There are three Douggie Shimmatarros living in Gloucester — that I know of,” says Douggie without a hint of humor in his voice.
When two more unemployed men, Frankie Verga (Luca Pierucci) and Dubbah Morrison (Gabe Fazio), arrive at the plant, it becomes clear just how small a town Gloucester is. They all know Douggie’s mom and, more specifically, a side of her Douggie does not know — she was the town whore, a known drug addict, and the secret love of Bobby’s life. Divulging this information rekindles painful memories, past resentments, and leads to a violent outbreak.
Director William Balzac uses long, awkward silences to create an emotionally charged environment that keeps the audience enraptured, but also frightened of what is to come. T.S. Joseph, Luca Pierucci and Gabe Fazio are convincing as dead-end-bound Gloucester guys — Joseph especially offers a strong performance — but Francisco Solorzano is a little too rigid and emotionally distanced from his character.
In the end, the audience is left depressed, shaken and somewhat disturbed — but more importantly, thoroughly entertained. A trip to Gloucester in the near future, though, is completely out of the question.
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78th Street Theatre Lab (2nd floor)
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Category: One-Acts
Written by: Israel Horovitz
Directed by: Francisco Solorzan and William Balzac
Produced by: Barefoot Theatre Company
Opened: August 5, 2004
Closed: August 22, 2004
Running Time: 110 minutes
Theater: 78th Street Theatre Lab (2nd floor)
Address: 236 W. 78th Street
New York, NY 10024
Yahoo! Maps Directions
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Tickets: $15.00
not available
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Creative Team
Written by: Israel Horovitz
Directed by: Francisc Solorzano and William Balzac
Light Designer: Heekyung Ann
Sound and Set Designer: John Beverly
Costume Designers: Victoria and Aldina Malvagno
Fight Choreographers: J. David Brimmer and Christopher G. Roberts
Original Music by: Barry F. Wyner
Cast
Nancy Harkins as Catherine Shimma
Kendra Leigh Landon as Ruthie Flynn
Dolores McDougal as Arlyne Flynn
Lisa Hickman as Josie Evangelista
AnaMarie Correa as Maureen Vega
Sabrina C. Cataudella as Marlena Vega
Victoria Malvagno as Florence Rizzo
Gil Ron as Salvatore "Sally" Morella
Chris Whalen as Alfred "Porker" Martino
T. S. Joseph as Bobby Maloney
Francisco Solorzano as Douggie Shimmatarro
Luca Pierucci as Frankie Verga
Gabe Fazio as Dubbah Morrison
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