{"id":14598,"date":"2016-05-07T10:58:30","date_gmt":"2016-05-07T14:58:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/huntsville.dopperonline.ca\/?p=14598"},"modified":"2016-05-07T11:02:54","modified_gmt":"2016-05-07T15:02:54","slug":"performance-shows-good-people-arent-always-where-you-expect-to-find-them-a-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/performance-shows-good-people-arent-always-where-you-expect-to-find-them-a-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Performance shows Good People aren’t always where you expect to find them: a review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Photos supplied by Huntsville Theatre Company<\/em><\/p>\n

In a town where poverty and economic struggle regularly rub up against wealth and privilege, the Huntsville Theatre Company\u2019s production of Good People<\/em> strikes a chord.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re introduced to Margaret (Margie \u2013 with a hard \u2018g\u2019 \u2013 to her friends), a working class, single mom in South Boston, or Southie, just as she loses her job as a dollar store cashier.<\/p>\n

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Often late to work, thanks to the unreliable babysitter who watches her disabled adult daughter, this is just one in a string of low-paying jobs she\u2019s lost. The audience can\u2019t help but empathize as Margie pleads for her job with manager Stevie, but their interaction provides the first hints that she\u2019s more complex than she might appear on the surface.<\/p>\n

Karen Lawrence\u2019s marathon performance as Margie \u2013 she\u2019s on stage in every scene, nearly from beginning to end \u2013 brings to life class struggles and forces the audience to consider if where you end up can be a matter of circumstance and luck no matter how hard you try.<\/p>\n

Margie is a difficult character to pigeonhole. She\u2019s not educated, but she\u2019s smart. She\u2019s labelled herself as \u2018nice,\u2019 but nice can be relative. She can be both passive aggressive and apologetically assertive, often back to back. And she reacts to her station in life with surprising wit and humour. Lawrence plays it all with aplomb.<\/p>\n

Jean, Margie\u2019s life-hardened and ascerbic best friend, played by Jane Morris, provides considerable comic relief with her straight-shooting, curse-laden diatribes. And Dottie, played by Diane Bickley, lives up to her name in a delightfully humourous and at times childish portrayal of Margie\u2019s landlady and unreliable babysitter.<\/p>\n\n\t\t