A Riotous Exploration of Grief and Community
REVIEW by ANTHONY CHASE
Road Less Traveled Productions offers a vibrant, pungent rendition of Stephen Adly Guirgis's tragicomedy Our Lady of 121st Street, co-directed by Scott Behrend and Mike Doben. The company has taken on Guirgis before, with a hugely successful production of his play The Motherfucker with the Hat during the 2016-2017 season. That production earned multiple Artie nominations, including Outstanding Production of a Play and nods for performances by Melinda Capeles and Rolando Gómez, who are also in this cast. It won the Artie for Anthony Alcocer, and it bears mention that Stephen Adly Guirgis visited Road Less Traveled and is one of the playwrights who has been featured in their American Theatre Masters series, which brings nationally recognized theatre artists to Buffalo. They have also done his 2005 play, The Last Days of Judas Isariot, and the 2014 play, Between Riverside and Crazy.
Â
In true Stephen Adly Guirgis fashion, Our Lady of 121st Street centers around a shocking premise: the body of beloved Harlem nun Sister Rose has been stolen from the Ortiz Funeral Home, leaving behind an empty casket and a parade of her former students and acquaintances who've gathered to pay their respects. As these fractured souls converge at the funeral home and nearby bar, long-buried resentments surface and old wounds reopen in a prolonged sequence of intense conversations.Â
Â
Collin Ranney's set design is stunning and facilitates these interactions and confrontations highly effectively. The viewing room of the Ortiz funeral parlor dominates center and stage right, while a giant neon sign for the business slices across the vertical stage left side and is embedded in the Harlem sidewalk at a slight diagonal. This economical and expressive arrangement creates multiple locations, allowing for swift transitions between settings.
Â
The production showcases an exceptional ensemble that fearlessly embraces Guirgis's delightful dialogue in the Harlem vernacular while mining the deeper emotional currents beneath. Here, the theft of Sister Rose's corpse serves as a catalyst for confrontations both hilarious and heart-wrenching by a cast in which everyone plays to their strengths.Â
David C. Mitchell brings a manic intensity to Victor, the mourner without pants who discovers the theft. His outrage at this "sacrilege" provides both comedy and poignancy as we glimpse his genuine devotion to Sister Rose.
Â
Johnny Rowe's Balthazar, the detective investigating the case, delivers a subtle performance balancing world-weary cynicism with unexpected vulnerability. His devastating personal revelation creates one of the play's several quietly moving moments.
Peter Johnson commands the stage as Rooftop, a celebrated Los Angeles radio DJ returning to his old neighborhood. Johnson masterfully navigates Rooftop's verbose, rhythmic monologues with the timing of a veteran stand-up comic while never losing sight of the character's authentic emotional core.
Â
His confessional scene with Father Lux showcases his exceptional skill and range -- Johnson's delivery of Rooftop's increasingly desperate attempts to delay genuine confession is sidesplittingly funny, yet he transitions seamlessly into moments of startling honesty. Finally, his complex relationship with his ex-wife, Inez, reveals layers of regret and longing beneath his charismatic swagger. Johnson embodies the character so completely -- from his distinctive vocal cadence to his physical presence -- that even in Rooftop's most outlandish moments, we never doubt the reality of this flawed, fascinating man trying to outrun his past.
Â
Davida Evette Tolbert, giving another knock-out Road Less Traveled performance, brings dignity and ferocity to Inez, Rooftop's former wife. Tolbert skillfully portrays a woman who has built a new life yet remains haunted by old betrayals. Her controlled fury gives way to moments of devastating candor, particularly in her final confrontation with Rooftop, where years of resentment and residual affection compete for dominance. Tolbert's electric confrontations with Melinda Capeles's volatile Norca showcase her ability to shift between righteous indignation and weary resignation without losing the character's fundamental strength.
Melinda Capeles delivers a tour-de-force as the unapologetically aggressive Norca, finding the perfect balance between her character's threatening exterior and the confused pain that fuels her rage. Her physicality is as expressive as her dialogue – Capeles commands attention with her stance alone before she even speaks. The performance is fueled by the actor’s willingness to embrace Norca's ugliest impulses without attempting to soften them for audience sympathy. Yet in brief, unguarded moments, Capeles reveals glimpses of a wounded soul beneath the combative posturing.
Â
Xavier Harris and Bobby Cooke have charming chemistry as Flip and Gail, bringing depth to their relationship struggles. Harris effectively portrays Flip's conflict between his Wisconsin life and Harlem roots, while Cooke's sharp comedic timing makes Gail's theatrical outbursts both funny and touching.
In Father Lux, Peter Palmisano creates a priest whose crisis of faith feels authentic and muddled rather than staunch and clichéd. His wheelchair-bound cynicism offers a counterpoint to the more explosive characters around him. Through Palmisano we can see that being such a flawed man ultimately makes Father Lux a very good priest.
Â
The brotherly relationship between Edwin and Pinky provides some of the play's most tender moments. Alejandro Gabriel Gómez captures Edwin's conflicted protectiveness, while Dan Torres brings surprising depth to Pinky, making his intellectual limitations merely one aspect of a fully realized character, whose disability obstructs his own capacity to understand his fears and desires.
Jenn Stafford, who specializes in the hilariously neurotic, brings both comedic precision and unexpected emotional depth to Marcia. Her panic attacks and social awkwardness could easily become one-note, but Stafford uncovers the genuine human anxiety beneath the humor. Her scenes with Gómez's Edwin reveal a woman desperate for connection despite her self-sabotaging tendencies, and Stafford's physical comedy—particularly her progressive meltdown during her first encounter with Edwin—earns some of the night's biggest laughs while never sacrificing character authenticity.
As Sonia, Eve Everette assays the challenging role of the neighborhood outsider with quiet assurance. Where other characters announce themselves with verbal pyrotechnics, Guirgis has given Sonia more restrained observations.  Everette uses this contrast to ground the scenes she inhabits. Her reactions during the heated confrontation between Norca and Inez communicate complex layers of both discomfort and fascination, and she crafts a character who serves as both witness and occasional conscience to the proceedings. Note with admiration how nonchalantly she lands the laugh after Norca literally gets in her face. Everette deploys her limited stage time to ensure that Sonia's presence registers as more than merely functional to the plot.
Â
Maura Price's costume designs effectively reflect each character's personality and place in the world. Fight director Stephanie Warnick choreographs several confrontations that feel dangerously authentic.
Our Lady of 121st Street is often uncomfortable in its humor, and its explorations of guilt, grief, and redemption pull no punches. Yet under Behrend and Doben's assured and insightful direction, the production finds the beating heart, as it travels from interaction to interaction, revealing how even the most broken connections can offer pathways to healing. The production falters only once, in the final moments -- an interaction mirroring the opening scene between Rowe as Balthazar and Mitchell as Victor, who are otherwise splendid in the roles. This last scene serves as a culminating moment where grief, connection, and possibly redemption converge, but on the night that I attended, it lacked clear emotional crescendo and felt more procedural than profound. Still, this ensemble fully embodies Guirgis's rawly eloquent script, elevating it into a celebration of community in all its messy, contradictory glory. Sister Rose may be missing, but her influence permeates every moment of this excellent production.
Our Lady of 121st Street continues through March 23, 2025