Stephen McKinley Henderson is unforgettable as Pops in Stephen Adly Guirgis’s Between Riverside and Crazy (photo by Joan Marcus 2022)
BETWEEN RIVERSIDE AND CRAZY
Hayes Theater
240 West 44th St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through February 19, $68-$210 (live simulcast $68)
2st.com/shows
At the 2015 Drama Desk Awards, I had the option of being seated in the audience with the cast and crew of any nominated show; without hesitation, I chose Stephen Adly Guirgis’s searing dark comedy Between Riverside and Crazy. The Atlantic Theater production had three nominations: Best Play, Outstanding Actor in a Play for the amazing Stephen McKinley Henderson, and Outstanding Director of a Play for legendary actor, teacher, and director Austin Pendleton. The show, which had just won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, was up against such staunch competition as The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Airline Highway, and Let the Right One In; among those competing for Best Musical were An American in Paris, Hamilton, and Something Rotten!
As the evening progressed, Pendleton slumped lower and lower into his chair as he, Henderson, and Guirgis failed to take home a trophy, losing each time to Curious Incident (Simon Stephens for Best Play, Alex Sharp for actor, and Marianne Elliott for director). In January 2015, Between Riverside and Crazy received an encore run at Second Stage’s Tony Kiser Theater, with nearly the full original cast. Last month, the show opened at Second Stage’s Hayes Theater on Broadway, where it has been extended through February 19. It still packs the same punch it did almost nine years ago at the Atlantic.
The extended family of Between Riverside and Crazy makes a toast (photo by Joan Marcus 2022)
The 130-minute show (with intermission) unfolds in a cramped rent-controlled apartment and rooftop on Riverside Drive (the rotating set is by Walt Spangler), where the recently widowed Walter “Pops” Washington (Henderson) lives with a motley crew of younger folks, including his ne’er-do-well son, Junior (Common), who is on parole; Junior’s scantily clad girlfriend, Lulu (Rosal Colón); and Oswaldo (Victor Almanzar), a tough-talking young man in recovery who Pops has taken in. All three call Walter either Pop, Pops, or Dad, even though he’s hardly the loving, nurturing type. Pops spends most of his time in the kitchen, eating pie, taking swigs of alcohol, and sitting in his wife’s wheelchair, pontificating on life.
His daily reflections don’t exactly reflect popular psychology. As Oswaldo discusses his health and why he no longer eats Ring Dings and baloney, which he ate because he didn’t feel safe or cared for by his parents, Oswaldo tells Pops, “I’m not trying to get all up in your business, but maybe that’s also the reason you always be eating pie — because of, like, you got emotionalisms — ya know?” Pops replies, “Emotionalisms.” Oswaldo continues, “I know — it sounded funny at first to me too — but emotionalisms is real, and pie — don’t take this wrong, but they say pie is like poison.” To which Pops concludes, “Pie ain’t like poison, Oswaldo — pie is like pie!”
A retired cop facing eviction, Pops is in a major fight with the city and the NYPD, demanding more cash in compensation for his shooting by a white rookie officer eight years earlier. One night his former partner, Det. Audrey O’Connor (Guirgis regular Elizabeth Canavan), and her fiancée, Lieutenant Caro (originally played by Michael Rispoli, though I saw understudy J. Anthony Crane, who was excellent; the role has now been taken over by Gary Perez), come over for dinner. They try to convince him to take the deal, as time is running out, but Pops stands by his principles while also understanding Caro’s motive in urging him to sign off. “An honorable man can’t be bought off,” he previously explained to Junior. “An honorable man doesn’t just settle a lawsuit ‘No Fault’ and lend his silence to hypocrisy and racism and the grievous violation of all our civil rights.”
Pops changes some of his views on life — and death — after a visit from the new church lady (Maria-Christina Oliveras) ends up sending him to the hospital.
Pops (Stephen McKinley Henderson) and Lulu (Rosal Colón) share a moment in powerful New York play (photo by Joan Marcus 2022)
I called Between Riverside and Crazy one of the best plays of 2014, and currently it’s the best nonrevival on Broadway. (The best new musical on Broadway, Kimberly Akimbo, also got its start at the Atlantic.) Seventy-three-year-old Tony nominee Henderson (A Raisin in the Sun, Guirgis’s The Last Days of Judas Iscariot), a longtime staple in the work of August Wilson, is unforgettable as Pops, a character who’s hard not to love even as you learn some questionable things about him. Henderson has an endearingly round face, gentle eyes, and an infectious smile that makes you want to call him Pops too. The play is very much about fathers and sons: Pops’ relationship with Junior, Oswaldo’s troubles with his dad, and Pops’ feelings about his own father. Even Det. O’Connor tells Pops, “You’re like my father.”
The set includes a rooftop veranda where Henderson gets even closer to his adoring audience. The rest of the cast is terrific under Pendleton’s (Gidion’s Knot, Orson’s Shadow) expert direction. Guirgis (Our Lady of 121st Street, Jesus Hopped the “A” Train), who grew up on Riverside Drive, writes gritty, believable dialogue and creates hard-hitting situations that are quintessentially New York, mixing comedy and tragedy with subtle, and not-so-subtle, narrative shifts.
If I were going to the 2023 Tony Awards and had the choice of which show to sit with, I just might choose Between Riverside and Crazy again. In the meantime, get yourselves to the Hayes and become part of this beautiful extended family.