Good People
Opening Night Playbill
Written by	David Lindsay-Abaire
Characters	Mike: Margie's old highschool boyfriend Margie: single mother, fired from her job Dottie: friend of Margie Jean: friend of Margie Stevie: Margie's former boss Kate: Mike's wife
Date premiered	February 8, 2011 (2011-02-08)
Place premiered	Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, Broadway
Original language	English
Subject	Middle class life in a South Boston neighborhood
Setting	South Boston
Official site

Good People is a 2011 play by David Lindsay-Abaire. The world premiere was staged by the Manhattan Theatre Club in New York City.^[1] The production was nominated for two 2011 Tony Awards – Best Play and Best Leading Actress in a Play (Frances McDormand), with the latter winning.^[2]

Synopsis

Margie Walsh, a lifelong resident of Southie, a blue collar Boston neighborhood,^[3] is fired for tardiness from her job as a cashier at a dollar store. A single mother, and knowing that she and her handicapped adult daughter Joyce, "are only a single paycheck away from desperate straits",^[4] Margie goes to her old high school boyfriend Mike — now a doctor, but formerly from her neighborhood — looking for employment. After a verbal game of chicken, Margie shames Mike into inviting her (however reluctantly) to his birthday party in Chestnut Hill. Margie is looking forward to the party because she views it as a chance to meet potential employers. Her friends, Dottie and Jean, encourage her to tell Mike that her daughter Joyce was not born premature but is his, in hopes of getting support from Mike. When Mike calls to tell her that the party has been cancelled, Margie assumes that he is disinviting her because he's embarrassed to have her mix with his bourgeois doctor friends. She decides to go to the house anyway, with the intent of crashing the party.

At the beginning of Act II, Margie arrives at Mike's house only to discover that the party has, in fact, been cancelled. Mike's elegant young African American wife Kate at first mistakes Margie for a caterer coming to pick up left-over party paraphernalia.^[4] Once the misunderstanding is resolved, Kate invites Margie to stay and reminisce about Mike's past (though Mike is clearly less than enthusiastic at the prospect). A discussion begins, in which Mike tells Margie that her current financial problems are her own fault for not trying hard enough, and Margie tries to explain to Mike that he had lucky breaks that most people from Southie didn't. She talks about the time Mike was beating an African American boy and Mike's father intervened to prevent him from possibly killing the boy and ending up in prison. Then she goes further and tells him that he is Joyce's father, and that she never told the truth about the paternity because she wanted Mike to be able to "get out". Mike says that it wouldn't have made a difference if she'd told him, as he had been planning to leave her anyway. Kate, though she had been taking Margie's side, says to Margie that if Joyce was indeed Mike's, it was selfish of her to hide that fact and not do everything she could for her child. Margie finally claims she was encouraged by her friends to try to extort Mike and it was, indeed, a lie, before finally leaving in shame (though not without implying that Mike is cheating on Kate).

Later, Margie's landlady receives an envelope marked as having Margie's rent inside - thinking it has been sent from Mike, Margie intends to return it to him. At bingo, though, it is revealed that the envelope is from Stevie, her former boss at the dollar store - upon learning this, Margie accepts the money as an indefinite "loan" and Stevie agrees to help her find a new job. In a final twist to the plot, Margie asks Jean how she knew that Joyce was indeed Mike's baby, to which Jean replies that "everybody knows."

Productions

Original Broadway cast

• Frances McDormand as "Margie"
• Tate Donovan as "Mike"
• Estelle Parsons as "Dottie"
• Becky Ann Baker as "Jean"
• Patrick Carroll as "Stevie"
• Renée Elise Goldsberry as "Kate"
• Emma Rayne Lyle as "Ali" (vo)

Geffen Playhouse (Los Angeles) cast

• Jane Kaczmarek as "Margie"
• Jon Tenney as "Mike"
• Marylouise Burke as "Dottie"
• Sara Botsford as "Jean"
• Brad Fleischer as "Stevie"
• Cherise Boothe as "Kate"

The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis cast

• Denise Cormier as "Margie"
• Ward Duffy as "Mike"
• Andrea Gallo as "Dottie"
• Elizabeth Ann Townsend as "Jean"
• Aaron Orion Baker as "Stevie"
• Zoey Martinson as "Kate"

The Alley Theatre of Houston cast

• Elizabeth Bunch as "Margaret"
• Dylan Godwin as "Stevie"
• Jennifer Harmon as "Dottie"
• Melissa Pritchett as "Jean"
• Chris Hutchison as "Mike"
• Krystel Lucas as "Kate"

Geva Theatre Center cast

• Constance Macy as "Margaret"
• Nick Abeel as "Stevie"
• Peggy Cosgrave as "Dottie"
• Dee Pelletier as "Jean"
• Sean Patrick Reilly as "Mike"
• Nicole Lewis as "Kate"

Awards and nominations

Response

Good People received mostly positive reviews, with Ben Brantley in The New York Times writing:^[25]

"Embodied with an ideal balance of expertise and empathy by Frances McDormand, Margie (as her friends call her, using a hard "g") is the not-quite heroine of David Lindsay-Abaire’s "Good People," the very fine new play that opened Thursday night at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater. And discovering how Margie operates — and where she’s coming from — is one of the more subtly surprising treats of this theater season."

The Variety Magazine review noted, "If 'Good People' isn't a hit for Manhattan Theater Club, there is no justice in the land . . . McDormand has an uncanny affinity for women who work hard to make a living and suck it up without complaint."^[26] However, Talkin' Broadway's Matthew Murray called the show "no better energizing this inert premise" and called the lead roles "miscast".^[27]

Jason Clark, in Slant Magazine, stated, "Only David Lindsay-Abaire could write scenes of downtrodden Southie ... As sensitive a modern playwright as can be heard these days, the setups for the scenes in his grandly entertaining Good People—his best work to date—sound like doomed-to-fail, ivory tower-slanted scenarios: a minimum-wage employee being fired for dismal work, an uneasy meeting of old flames (one of which has a spouse of a different race), the needs of a child with a major disability ... Instead of holding up the play's lead character Margaret (Frances McDormand) as a victim of hard luck, the playwright shrewdly uses her as an example of how choices can make or break us, and the smallest twists of fate determine our path."^[25]

In a negative review, Terry Teachout (The Wall Street Journal), wrote, "I doubt it's a coincidence that they are exactly the kinds of people who fit into the familiar sociological narrative that permeates every page of this play. In Mr. Lindsay-Abaire's America, success is purely a matter of luck, and virtue inheres solely in those who are luckless. So what if Mikey worked hard? Why should anybody deserve any credit for working hard? Hence the crude deck-stacking built into the script of Good People, in which Mikey is the callous villain who forgot where he came from and Margie the plucky Southie gal who may be the least little bit racist (though she never says anything nasty to Mikey's wife—that would be going too far!) but is otherwise a perfect heroine-victim."^[28]

References

External links

• Official website
• ​Good People​ at the Internet Broadway Database
• Good People at Broadway.com