In its final production on the Neuhaus Stage, before everything is packed up and moved over to the University of Houston for a year while home base is being retrofitted, the Alley Theatre presents David Lindsay-Abaire's Good People, a bitingly funny and ultimately serious look at the class divide.
Alley Company members Elizabeth Bunch and Chris Hutchison, married in real life, will play opposite each other -- she as the suddenly unemployed Margie Walsh who contacts her former lover Mike and he as that old flame who is now a successful doctor."
James Black directs and Jennifer Harmon (August Osage County) is back to play Margie's friend Dottie, one of two people who urge Margie to tell Mike that her child who was born prematurely, is his as a way of getting help from him.
Nominated for a Tony Award for Best Play, Good People will have audience members divided about who they should be rooting for.
"These characters are so intricately wrought," Hutchison says. "All of these characters have pieces of each audience member that they will recognize. So I think sympathies change pretty dramatically from scene to scene and even moment to moment in allegiances and alliances. I would like to be a fly on the wall in the lobby."
And Bunch says: "It challenges the audience to admit you can't be resolute in your allegiances. If you stick to that you're going to miss the story. You have to be willing to go where the story keeps ping-ponging you back and forth."
Good People runs through June 29 at the Alley Theatre, 615 Texas Avenue. 7:30 Sundays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays; 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2:30 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. For information call 713-220-5700 or visit alleytheatre.org. $26-$65.
