The Motherf**ker With The Hat: Recovery Wrecks In Search Of Themselves

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The Motherf**ker With The Hat: Recovery Wrecks In Search Of Themselves

by Richard Lord

As we settle into our seats at Theatre Exile‘s South Philly home, our eyes quickly settle on  Colin McIlvaine’s spare set. It’s just a bed, a couch, and a small wooden table with chairs tucked under the table. Oh, one more thing – eight photos hang from above. The photos are of burnt-out cases sprawled on the streets of Kensington or Center City Philly. The assumption is that most of this octet have used controlled substances to burn themselves out. The implication is that they hover over McIlvaine’s set to tell us that this scourge that hovers over the lives of the main characters in this play by Stephen Adly Guirgis.

At the center of The Motherf**ker With The Hat (hereafter to be known as MFWTH) are two characters taking the recovery route at very different paces, as well as a third character who seems to have no intention of even considering any recovery route.

MFWTH opens with Veronica on the phone, flogging advice to her mother about her (Mama’s) latest boyfriend. No sooner does Veronica hang up than her own long-time lover, Jackie, appears. Jackie has just returned from a soft stint in prison for drug dealing. Jackie proudly proclaims that he is now reformed, sober, and gainfully employed. He wants to celebrate his freedom and his new start in life with some robust sexual healing with Veronica. He starts peeling off his clothing as Ronnie readies herself in another room. However, as he tugs the blanket off the bed and starts to snuggle in, he detects the scents of another man. He then notices a man’s hat perched on a chair across the room. He strolls over, picks up the hat, and examines it. Spoiler: this discovery will not prove to be very helpful in Jackie’s recovery struggle.

When Veronica reappears, Jackie asks her how this hat happened to find its way to the chair in what he thought was their shared apartment. Veronica’s string of explanations are unconvincing, so an angry Jackie sets off to track down and punish that titular mother f**cker with the hat who has apparently been doing his office ‘twixt the sheets while Jackie was doing his time for dealing.

In the next scene, Jackie turns up at the home of his sponsor and parole counselor, himself a recovering alcoholic, and from there, the plot thickens into a psychological and emotional morass in which all four main characters get trapped.

Before I go any further, let me deliver my verdict on the show: this is a powerful play with an unfortunate title that should not keep you from catching the stellar production by  Theatre Exile, in partnership with Brothers Network. One caveat though: if you’re a sensitive type easily offended by profanities, you might find yourself on the edge of catatonic shock as the play moves along. MFWTH’s power is rooted in its characters, and they are not always very pleasant people. Nor are they at all prissy in how they express themselves. Playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis has not pulled many punches in his gruff portrayals of people who have often traipsed at the edge of the abyss. Accordingly, the f-word gets flung around liberally as the characters rely on harsh language to convey their convoluted feelings.

Central character Jackie is an alcoholic who occasionally dips into drugs. His partner Veronica is a conventional addict. Ralph, Jackie’s sponsor and alleged friend, is a reformed alcoholic who’s been riding the crest of sobriety for years. In fact, Ralph now runs a business selling nutritional drinks with his wife Victoria, and they’re both health food enthusiasts. Their business seems to be doing well, while their marriage is steadily coming apart. Oh, and Veronica’s mother – whom we never see – is herself a hapless addict. For her part, Veronica has seemingly eschewed the vanity of effort: she’s an unrepentant addict reconciled to her addiction.

An important ancillary character is Jackie’s cousin Julio, a gym rat dedicated to keeping his body trim and buff. Julio is ready to reel off his achievements in the weight room or vaunt the way he attends to his overall appearance and physical prowess. Though he finds cousin Jackie repugnant in many ways, he’s attached to him because of the care shown to him over many years by Jackie’s mother and one outstanding act of kindness Jackie showed them when they were both young. He’s always willing to take up Jackie’s cause whenever the latter gets into trouble he can’t handle himself – which is all too often. (Julio also admits that he himself was once in rehab – for a sex addiction.)

As the play proceeds, we discover that betrayal and self-deception are all a part of the characters’ makeup and their interlocking relationships, and those two flaws drive much of the plot. As the show’s director Ozzie Jones notes, the characters in MFWTH are all yearning for understanding. The problem is, they can’t understand themselves, their needs and their truths. It seems they use drugs, alcohol and/or sex to power the search for that understanding – or maybe to escape from the pain of understanding themselves. Pain itself  becomes a drug as this quartet of losers struggles to get to a safe place. This might sound rather dreary, but it makes for first-rate theatre.

Truth is, the play is not  at all dreary. There are actually at least as many laughs as winces in this show, probably more. It’s a stretch worthy of Julio’s gym warm-ups to call this play a comedy – as some critics of earlier productions have – but playwright Guirgis stirs in enough light and dark humor to make this an entertaining as well as a gripping evening.

As powerful as the script is, a solid cast is needed to handle that power successfully. The casting in the Theatre Exile-Brothers’ Network was spot-on as the five actors not only fit their characters well, but also play against each other splendidly.

J Hernandez seems a perfect choice for Jackie. Hernandez offers both vulnerability and seething anger, which form a combustible mix as his Jackie tries to negotiate a world that is not particularly welcoming to him. Hernandez brings all his impressive skills to bear as he creates a character on an emotional roller coaster which is often threatening to spring off the tracks.

Scott Greer’s Ralph is a grand foil to Hernandez’s Jackie. Greer (who still bears a strong resemblance to mid-career Orson Welles) gives us a well-pitched performance and comes up with a Ralph who rides spinning waves of feigned charm and counterfeit confidence until all his deceptions are pulled out for display and admission. Chris Rock played Ralph in the original Broadway production of MFWTH, and I can’t imagine him in this role after seeing such a definitive performance from Scott Greer.

Daniela Malavé delivers a nicely defined performance as Veronica. The vulnerability with which Malavé infuses her character works well in tandem with that of Jackie’s vulnerability here. But this Ronnie can also be suitably prickly at the right moments.

One problem with Malavé’s Veronica is that she looks too healthy and moves at too balanced a pace for an addict. The makeup people could make her look a bit more haggard, and the performance itself could use a few additional notes of paranoia or fits of panic typical of bingers and other regular users.

Amanda Schoonover takes on the role of Victoria. Her performance is the most understated of the quintet, fitting considering that she is the one character who is neither in recovery nor in pre-recovery. Even so, Schoonover’s performance is solid and nicely anchors the volatile foursome at the center of the drama.

Zach Valdez handles the role of Julio impressively. Valdez is strong in every appearance, at one point even dominating a scene he shares with Greer and Hernandez. While delivering a threat to one of the other characters, his Julio moves in until the two are almost chin-to-chin. Valdez ends the threat with a popping sound which merits a laugh of relief, even as we know that the pop could also be interpreted as a promise of delivering on his threat. This bit shows a level of skill that is not at all easy to achieve.

The direction of this production – primarily by Ozzie Jones – is exemplary, packing so much emotional charge in the interplay of damaged characters despite having basically just one set to create this fraught world the characters move within and without.

Nonetheless, there was one miscue all too evident in the direction and performances. Late in the play, a fight breaks out between two characters: an ugly scrap that quickly becomes a no-holds-barred affair, complete with roundhouse punches and one brutal headbutt. Yet, just moments later, the two combatants are engaged in grudgeful conversation and display no physical signs of the vicious blows they had just exchanged. Blows like that don’t fade so easily. The bitter exchange between the two would only be enhanced by seeing the two actors tending to the physical pain inflicted on their characters.

But that criticism is more of a quibble than a serious charge. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the direction of this production is that the main director, the aforementioned Ozzie Jones, handled the entire rehearsal process over Zoom and from a hospital bed – while recovering from open-heart surgery. Anyone who has directed or been directed in a play at any level can imagine what a challenge that must have been. Jones did have the assistance of Exile’s own Deborah Block, whom he credits as his co-director. (Block’s regular post is producing artistic director of Theatre Exile.)  But Mr. Jones deserves an especially deep nod of appreciation for his work under such circumstances.

The Motherf**ker With The Hat runs until February 27 at Theatre Exile, 1340 S. 13th Street, Philadelphia. Monday, Wednesday and Thursday performances are at 7:00 p.m., Friday and Saturday performances at 8:00, Sunday performances at 3:00. There is also a 12:00 noon performance on Thursday, Feb.24. No Tuesday performances.