Joint Account

Socially conscious production sends message, sans preaching

by Mark Cofta

Simpatico Theatre Project's mission to be a force for positive social change has a ripped-from-the-headlines quality, so Marsha Norman's 1977 drama Getting Out might feel dated.

Like most Simpatico selections, Norman's play — about a recently paroled convict finding life outside tougher than serving time — doesn't preach. Director Carol Laratonda's gritty production resists the script's melodramatic moments to present a raw and real portrait of a woman's struggle to overcome her self-destructive survival instincts.

Amanda Grove plays weathered, worn Arlene, settling in to a dingy apartment in her Kentucky hometown after eight years' incarceration in Alabama for manslaughter. Simultaneously, we see her teenage self, Arlie (Melissa Lynch), prowling her cage and tangling with the principals, doctors, friends and her mother, whose apathy and frustration help forge her inevitable path to prison.

Especially telling in Christopher Butterfield's set are the bars surrounding Arlene's new home, haunting reminders of incarceration (and the need to keep other criminals out). The fear of returning drives the older, wiser Arlene, whereas jail for Arlie is just another raw deal to rebel against.

Norman doesn't excuse Arlie, and lovely Lynch makes her a violent, amoral seductress — but we see the price paid by Arlene in her agonizing struggle to survive in a society that sees only an ex-con, not a woman starting a new life. Gene D'Allessandro impresses as adoring guard Bennie, trapped in his smothering rescue fantasy; Ted Powell plays her former boyfriend and pimp, tempting her to return to their fast-and-easy past; and Jean Brooks makes Arlene's white-trash momma an oblivious monster.

All three, while trying to help in their own cruelly imperfect ways, threaten to force Arlene back to Arlie's self-destructive instincts. Fellow ex-con Ruby, played by Gigi Naglak, offers Arlene a ray of hope — but no one can save Arlene except herself.

The plight of ex-prisoners returning to society may not inspire much sympathy, but we all share responsibility: If those who paid their debt suffer lifelong discrimination, they're likely to resort to crime again.Arlene's struggle plays out for millions of Americans, and if they fail, as Getting Out movingly reveals, so have we.

Getting Out Through March 30, Simpatico Theatre Project, Second Stage at the Adrienne, 2030 Sansom St., 215-423-0254, simpaticotheatre.org.