Stephen Adly Guirgis' The Motherfucker with the Hat, intensely directed like a runaway downhill sled by Anna D. Shapiro, gives us colorful, uneducated, working-class people hollering their street vernacular with throat-scraping intensity. Addicts, criminals, lots of sturm and drang. It's a fascinating anthropological study, as if behind glass, of another species, with genuine comic sparks.
Bobby Cannavale and Elizabeth Rodriguez are the primo couple who yell their love and hate, and although each tends to stay on one level, they certainly are interesting. Chris Rock brings a quieter charm to his role as sponsor (and betrayer) of Cannavale, and the beautiful Annabella Sciorra gives a feminine strength to her role as Rock's lady. Yul Vazques, totally real as the practical gay compadre, steals the show. Although the play is mostly people swimming in their troubles and drowning in them, and some extended scenes could be trimmed a tad, as directed by Anna D. Shapiro, it is interesting to watch, although we don't particularly empathize with anyone on stage.
As with other Guirgis plays, such as Our Lady of 121st St., in which I once played the priest, the resolution really isn't. But it's okay; it's fascinating in its own way.
