Just Do It

Extremities

by Mark Cofta

Jan. 3-20, $14-$22, Mum Puppettheatre, 115 Arch St., 215-563-7500, newcitystage.org

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While Bucks County playwright William Mastrosimone and director William Roudebush have updated Mastrosimone's 1981 play Extremities with 21st-century trappings like cell phones, the Outer Critics Circle Award-winner's harrowing story about a woman overcoming an attacker — and then facing a dilemma about what to do with him — has, sadly, lost none of its relevance.

When Marjorie, played in New City Stage Co.'s production by Alana Gerlach, captures would-be rapist Raul (UArts senior Paul Felder), she rejects modern ethics (shoot now, avoid questions later) to wrestle with an impossible choice: either turn over Raul to the legal system, which in 1981 (and today) makes rape charges humiliating for victims, difficult to prove for prosecutors and easy to beat for perps — or kill him and become the monster she fears.

Mastrosimone's skill for revealing the personal stakes in social issues excels in Extremities; like his Columbine-inspired Bang Bang You're Dead, this isn't a political play, but rather an intimate life-and-death struggle. It's a revival long overdue. New City, which will donate some proceeds to Women Organized Against Rape, dedicates its first full season to Jersey native Mastrosimone, bookending Extremities with last fall's rarely seen Sunshine and another dark romance, The Woolgatherer, in May.