The Motherf**ker With The Hat

I recently met a Dutch psychiatrist who runs a $800  a day addiction rehabilitation clinic/spa in the Carribbean.  The psychiatrist has a theory that addicts are filled with too many emotions and use them in the wrong ways.  In his program he teaches addicts how subdue their emotions, which in his theory is as important will have the greatest effect on getting them to stop drinking drink.

I thought of my Dutch friend while watching Stephen Adly Guigus's (Jesus Takes the A Train)  The Motherf**ker With the Hat at the Schoenfeld Theater.

Jackie has just been released from prison.  He is doing well.  He's found a job, an AA sponsor,  works a serious AA program, has a girlfriend he loves, and seems to be on a path to rehabilitation and joining the lower middle class.  All this goes awry in scene one, when he discovers that his girlfriend has been cheating on with... the Motherf**ker With The Hat.

For the rest of the 135 minutes, intermission-less play we meet Jackie's cousin, his AA sponsor and his AA sponsor's wife.  We learn a lot about the AA program, gather that its not a hot bed of mental health, and watch

But more than anything else, the play is a masterclass in watching magnificent actors hone their craft.

In his second Broadway performance, Bobby Cannavale (he garnered a Tony Nomination for playing another down and out toughguy in Theresa Rhebeck's Mauritius) is a powerhouse as Jackie.  He goes from calm to calamity in a nano-second, and every emotion is raw and true.  With a vein in his neck pulsating, he violently confronts his addict girlfriend and it takes every once of control this control-less man can muster not to physically strike her.

Later, in scenes with his Ralph D (Chris Rock), his AA Sponsor, and his cousin Julio,  Yul Vazgquez, we see Jackie's softer side as he is forced to reconcile some painful truths about himself.  This is a man who desperately wants to change, and Ralph D. and Julio will help him, but it will cost. For Julio, its payback for years of slight, and Mr Vazquez gives a layered, tender performance of the gay man in ghetto.  For Ralph D., well, I don't want to give it away.  Jackie takes it with a universal bitterness and acceptance.

Annabella Sciorra and Elizabeth Rodriguez round out the cast as Victoria,  Ralph D.'s wife and Veronica, Jackie's girlfriend.  Both are miserable, trapped in lives they did not ask for and do not want, with only the vaguest idea of how to get out.

Victoria's refuses to see how her own addiction is a spiral downward, and in the final moments the lights go down as she prepares to take her mother to a rehab.  There is a motel with a pool across the street where she will stay.  What Ms. Rodriguez, all bluster in the beginning, can say with only a look at the end is heartbreaking.

Ms. Sciorra vainly tries to seduce Jackie in a desperate plea for escape and its testament to this beautiful actress how Jackie can resist.

That leaves comedy icon Chris Rock as Ralph D.  Miscast, with a high squeeky voice and lithe, thin body that seems out of place in this world, we never truly believe he is inhabiting his character.  This is most evident when Jackie and Ralph get into fist-a-cuffs.  I've seen high school productions that seemed more real.

Which brings me back to my friend the Dutch psychiatrist.  Ralph has significant years of abstinence and shows very little emotion even when he is doing horribly wrong things.  Is that one definition of true sobriety?

This is playwright Adly Guigus Broadway premier after a string of off-Broadway successes.  The characters might not sit right or relevant to a traditional Broadway audience, but as tightly directed by veteran Anna D. Shapiro, they belong uptown and given the wide stage they deserve.