Blind Alley

This is a trio of one-acts, each with realistic female characters in a contemporary urban setting. Hopscotch shows teenagers Haydee (Monica Read) and Dee (Mariana Carreno) dickering over how to spend Christmas. With a mother doing time, Haydee has "graduated" from school dropout population to petty crime, so Dee's more stable situation of separated, inimical parents makes her seem a bastion of stability. Add to that Dee's vestigial moral schema, and she is on her way to escape from the squalid life depicted. Maybe. Haydee calls herself Queen, but her insecurities have bred a tough outer shell, as she turns aggressive with Dee in between quick bouts with a fading hopscotch setup. The dialogue between the two is brisk, but too often author Nancy Nevarez interjects conversations with unseen passersby or heady narrations of gunfights and police actions by Dee or Haydee atop an oil drum. David Barber's lean set also offers a discarded sofa frame for the two to snuggle under to keep warm while waiting for Dee's no-show father. Finally Dee goes home with her mother plus live-in boyfriend, leaving Haydee to shout rap lines from the oil drum.

A Place to Go has Enid (Annie Henk) plus baby squatting in an abandoned building with India (Monica Read). Surprise guest Nena (Milena Davila) is intensely unwelcome -- unless she can somehow pay her way beyond the food stamps she has lifted from her house. It is unlikely, though, that she can pull in as much as Enid will that Christmas Eve, with baby in tow on the Wall Street subway station entrance. Maybe she will join her siblings in one or another family shelter. While Nevarez draws strong characters and supplies them with equally potent dialogue, she neglects to develop her stories in a significant way. Some of this may be due to her reluctance to judge the women, but neither does she offer any solutions to their agglomeration of problems. More disappointing is the almost complete lack of solidarity among her characters, who seem not to recognize the commonalties in their lives. Maybe Nevarez's conclusion is that without joining together, no improvement is possible, but she takes the scenic route to tell us.

The evening also includes a third play, Sisters, for four women.