Stephen Guirgis’ “The Motherf***er with the Hat,” aptly christened by The New York Times as “the play that dare not speak its name,” tackles the complexity of relationships, substance abuse and truth with the ferocity one might expect from its title. Live Arts, the volunteer theater on Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall, ran a spot-on interpretation of the play Oct. 11 through Nov. 9 with brilliant performances and set design complementing the admittedly profanity-riddled script. The production offered audiences a thought-provoking interpretation of the relevance of morality.
The play opens with Veronica (LaTrina Candia) and Jackie (Isaih “Ike” Anderson) celebrating Jackie’s recently acquired job after a stint in prison. Despite Veronica’s drug addiction and Jackie’s sagging jeans, the low-income couple is happy — at least, until Jackie spots an unidentified man’s hat on the table.
Jackie runs to Ralph (Jon Cobb), his yoga-practicing, green-smoothie-drinking AA sponsor, for guidance. Ralph’s self-serving manipulation catapults Jackie into the remaining 90 minutes of the tumultuous production, filled with backstabbing, relapse and infidelity.
Despite Charlottesville’s distance from the grimy New York apartments that characterized the setting, the intimate 50-person audience enthusiastically received Guirgis’ well-written jokes and existential musings. Live Arts did the impeccably modern yet perceptibly timeless script justice.
The actors were phenomenal — leading man Anderson believably portrayed Jackie as a shameful drunk, a violent revenge-seeker and a broken-hearted boyfriend, his cheeks wet with tears by the end of the emotional closing scene.
Candida played the self-serving Veronica with stunning hostility, tossing out sharp one-liners faster than she could dejectedly swig from the liquor bottle on her bedside table. But Cobb stole the show as moral relativist Ralph, played by Chris Rock in the show’s original Broadway run.
Though the tiny theater revealed the lack of realism in the fight scenes, the charged dialogue between the actors maintained the authenticity of the story. Most impressive was the fact that the performers are all volunteers from the Charlottesville community.
In the same vein, the Live Arts volunteer crew excelled in its creative set design. The performance took place in a miniscule blackbox dirtied by graffiti, representing the chaos of the characters’ bleak environments and disordered emotional lives. The efficient set changes involved simply moving a large furniture piece that served as Veronica’s bed, Ralph’s living room wall, or Jackie’s cousin Julio’s apartment, depending on how it was lifted and opened.
Ultimately, performers and set aside, “The Motherf***er With the Hat,” is a standout show that provokes further thought. Near the end of the show, Ralph tries to justify his personal sins and immorality, exclaiming, “I was happy…in a world full of heartache and confusion, what’s so wrong with that?”
Whether or not audience members have much in common with violent Jackie or self-centered Ralph, the characters’ struggle to define what is right makes the performance accessible. Jackie, Ralph and Veronica spend the duration of the production dealing with the fallout of their self-medication, and while it’s easy to blame them, it’s also easy to see a glimpse of yourself in their failures.
The brash title somewhat obfuscates this humorous, thoughtful gem of a play. Although audience members might show up to the box office to figure out who the motherf***er with the hat really is, once they are seated, Guirgis challenges them with deeper questions.
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