Lobby Hero

Reviewed by Holly Bartges

Poor Jeff. Nothing seems to go right for this guy who got booted out of the navy for getting caught smoking pot. It rankles him he knows several who smoked pot consistently and never getting caught. He tries it once, and bang his navel career comes to a grinding halt.

Jeff Haas as Jeff and Susan Scott as Dawn in the Miner’s Alley production of Lobby Hero.

What makes it worse is Jeff’s Dad was a Navy hero in WWII, an impressive story Jeff heard all of his life never being allowed to forget how important his father was. When Jeff returns home in disgrace, his father refuses to talk to him.

At loose ends, Jeff becomes a security guard in a Manhattan high-rise apartment building working the graveyard shift. Not much happens between the hours of midnight and 8:00 AM. Not much happens until….

Kenneth Lonergan’s brilliantly written play Lobby Hero brings the stage to life at Miners Alley Playhouse. Without a doubt this production should not be missed.

The brilliancy of the writing, the development of the characterizations, the details supplied by Terry Dodd’s ingenious direction, the particulars given to the set designed by Sarah Roshan all huddle together in camaraderie on the corner of Awesome Avenue and Thought Provoking Blvd where Compelling and Humor alleys crisscross.

Although the title implies someone is a hero, the four-character play interacts with down to earth issues for each character allowing detailed revelations to come to light. The brilliancy of the play is that Lonergan takes a highly serious issue burying it amongst wit, humor, charm, and honest funny. In the midst of the laughter, ethics peeks over the edge of the stage smiling wryly, saying “Gotcha!”

Jeff Haas slides with cool solidarity into security guard Jeff’s shoes and uniform. His defense: jokes, even when he knows the timing is off. He sees jokes in everything. They spill out before his brain realizes what action the mouth takes. Haas plays Jeff with strong consistency of the devil-may-care-what- difference-does-it-make-anyhow-there’s-not-much-else-I-can-do attitude.

William, Jeff’s supervisor, stands in the opposite corner of rough, gruff, rules are meant to be kept, in a straight-laced manner. Cajado Lindsey keeps the creases on his security guard uniform as straight and as narrow as his work ethic demands for William.

Having seen a policeman enter the building, William jumps all over Jeff for not having the entry written down. Jeff takes it with a grain of a salt since it was a social visit. What’s the big deal, sending William into further orbit.

Jeff’s incessant babbling encourages William to talk. His brother is in jail for suspicion of murder. Although the brother insists he is innocent, he can’t prove he was home alone when the murder took place. He needs an alibi, wanting William to tell the police they went to movie together.

The confusion in his mind over what to do crawls under his skin with the policeman hanging around.

Bill, the policeman, has other things on his mind besides murder; more like a woman who lives in 22J. Stopping by to see her every night comes easy since his partner is not only a rookie cop, but also a woman. Dawn needs his support, and he knows it. She’s not going to squeal. Arrogant confidence tells him he doesnŐt need to tell her anything except he’s going to see his friend, Jim.

Jude Moran and Susan Scott take Bill and Dawn for an incredible realistic ride with policeman type stances in perpetual motion. Dawn is awestruck over being assigned to work with Bill. He’s a top-flight cop who stands up for her when others raze her. He believes in her he says. She’s going to make a good cop he tells her. She feeds on his words stifling her attraction for him. A situation for Dawn has just taken place that could make her look bad if it wasn’t for Bill’s testimony that she was in the right.Her instructions are to hang around while Bill visits his friend in 22J.

Tongue-tied Jeff fantasizes having a relationship with her, but try as he might he finds it difficult to crack her professional shell. His nervous loose-as-a-goose mouth digs deep holes around him, but he never gives up.

William crawls inside himself faced with a horrendous ethical query: stand up with his brother out of loyalty and concern or do the right thing by telling the truth. To prove he’s the great cop he wants to be known for, Bill promises him he’ll do whatever he can to help even though it isn’t his case. The more he mouths the words of support to those around him, he’s free to do whatever he wants, so he thinks.

Accidentally, Jeff spills the beans as to what Bill is actually up to catching Dawn in a frightfully horrid dilemma. If she reports Bill, he promises to turn on her with a power-clutched ploy. If she obeys his commands, her moral fiber will be ripped to shreds.

Each character aptly reflects the turmoil running around loose inside of them. Each character attacking the situation from his/her own limited perspective.

Whether Jeff sees the opportunity to become a hero, or whether his loose funny mouth just doesn’t know how to keep a secret, or whether somewhere deep down in the center of his being he clings to a high ethical standard is up for grabs. Maybe a combination of all three possibilities promotes the secret of the play’s success. If Bill came across as a knight in shining armor to save the ethical day, phoniness would sit like a rain cloud over his head. Whatever the motivation, Haas brings to Jeff a subtle change in the character’s confidence realizing what he did, realizing what he could do.

The dynamics of the four characters carries a strong tone of believable realism carrying a knockout punch in the midst of laughter over Jeff’s stumbling words.

Roshan’s set design looks very like an apartment building lobby. There’s the security guard desk, the potted plants, signs to the elevator, the door to the building, the sidewalk outside. Pay attention to the floor. Yes, the floor. The lobby floor looks like a piece of linoleum laid upon the stage, a logical simplistic conclusion. When the characters walk across it, it even sounds like linoleum. The sidewalk outside looks like cement just the way it is suppose to look. Both an illusion. The sidewalk and the floor have been meticulously painted with perfected patterns constructed by Megapeg Scenic Services; an astonishing piece of work.

The details provided by Dodd’s direction, the digging deep by the actors into themselves to project visible inside/outside personality stuff, the honest funny, the everyday realistic ethical barriers, and the collaborative camaraderie of each piece of this stunning puzzle penned by Lonergan turns this production into a don’t miss no matter what