In Response to Our Lady...

The opening line, "What kinda fuckin world is this?" is a set up to the driving theme of the play: inner city madness. The voices seem to be caricatures of people in a world of insanity; quick, sly, impulsive tones spring back and forth in Harlem colloquialism. At first I felt the caricatures to be inauthentic, somewhat demeaning, and stereotypical. But as the play unfolded, I started to sense the symmetry, the necessity in design of the voices, and the playfulness of truth. I've spent time on the streets, in jails, and with the jesters of the mad hustle. While always bordering on fantastic, the play reads off in a heavy exchange of anxiety, from the detective to the radio personality, from the homosexual actor to the caretaker of the mentally disabled brother, all in precipitous predicaments that fit the context and rhythm. It's a concentrated effort of stereotypes and truths working in and around a singular context; the dead nun. Everyone has their issues and some deep seeded relation to their current predicament (except maybe Sonia who appears to be the straight woman). The syntax fits the chaos and the humor fits well with the juxtaposition of the absurd theft of Sister Rose's carcass. The play succeeds at its best with the misguiding surface level slang overlying the issue of chaos in a deteriorating world and fails slightly with his attempt at finishing off the reader with a last dash of sentimentality which could have been exposed through out (though he does offer some resolve) in some form of resolution (good or bad) between these characters and their pasts. Overall, the play succeeds in tricking the reader into believing the fantasy that is in many ways all too true.