Playwright: James Glossman from Suzanne Berne's novel. At: City Lit Theater, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr Ave. Tickets: 1-773-293-3682; www.citylit.org; $29. Runs through: April 13
A clean, white Washington, D.C., suburb is thrown into turmoil and fear when a boy is murdered in the summer of 1972, as Watergate makes headlines. Before that, earlier in the spring, Marsha Eberhardt's dad abandoned her and her mother to pursue an affair with Mom's kid sister. Marsha, 12 years old and an acquaintance of the murdered boy, conflates her father's departure with a disintegrating world of death, fear, government scandal and a new neighbor to whom Marsha takes an instant dislike with dire results. She's observant but lacks sufficient life experience to place her observations in a correct context. Her mother, however, understands. "She felt guilty for ever having felt secure," she narrates to us.
Suzanne Berne's novel, which James Glossman adapted, tells the story through Marsha's eyes as a child ( crisply dynamic Avery Moss ) and an adult ( pleasant but rueful Judy Lea Steel ). The entire cast delivers narration, but chief duties fall to Adult Marsha, the only individual who's not a character in the story. Looking back 30 or more years later, she now understands her observations, motives and mistakes at 12. Frequently, however, the audience's focus is drawn to Marsha's mom, Lois Eberhardt ( lively and nuanced Jennifer T. Grubb ), who not only struggles with personal betrayal but also must try to protect Marsha, if she possibly can, from damaging emotional fall-out. It's Lois who recognizes that Marsha's issues with the new, male neighbor are related to Dad's abandonment, and it's Lois who understands that she herself no longer marches in lock-step with her neighbors.
Glossman's stage adaptation preserves much of Berne's piquant descriptive material, sometimes bordering on humorous in a way which might seem out-of-keeping with the story's seriousness. There are descriptions of an undulating mermaid tattoo, of a boy dissecting a praying mantis with his pocketknife, of Marsha using a different color ink in her journal, etc. The narrative details shape the story's reality, of course, but also keep the first act from gaining much emotional mass. When intermission arrived, I couldn't help wondering when I was going to care about the characters. Fortunately, the pay-off came in Act II.
Director Terry McCabe, a past master of both writing and staging adaptations, effectively mines the subtext of the work, in a crisply-paced staging which never drags and is never too flashy. Dustin Pettegrew's workman-like unit set provides a variety of levels, areas and steps for the smoothly-flowing action but has no dazzle or beauty. Rachel M. Sypniewski's 1970's women's costumes pleasantly encompass chic, frumpy and hippy. Familiar 1970's pop hits nostalgically punctuate the performance. There's a strong personal feel to A Crime in the Neighborhood, a well-told contemporary tale about the consequences of our actions.