Mabel: I hate half-hearted friends. Loyalty comes before everything.
Margaret:Ye-es; but loyalties cut up against each other sometimes, you know.
That’s the essence of Loyalties, a play currently running in an unlikely venue – the back room of a restaurant in Hunter’s Point, Long Island City. Think Andy Rooney and Judy Garland saying “Let’s put on a show!” – then give them an incredible script, a talented director and a wonderful group of seasoned equity and young non-equity actors and you’ve got a hidden gem of a production just two subway stops off Broadway.
The play itself is a British drawing room drama by John Galsworthy, the author of the Fosythe Saga. Think Noel Coward, but from the inside. At the play’s outset, money is discovered stolen from a room at a country manor during a weekend when the house is filled with guests. The crime’s victim happens to be the only Jew in the group and not entirely a likable character, and the accused a war hero, boyhood chum and all around good ‘old boy. Loyalties harden, soften and shift as evidence begins to mount against the accused and his friends and young wife are forced to decide where they stand.
Loyalties is presented by the Unity Stage Company and directed by Sofia Landon Geier, who has created a very sophisticated production on a shoestring. This is theater at it’s best – top-notch actors performing real drama without expensive sets, corporate backers or rehashed movie scripts. Congrats to Sofia for unearthing this little known gem of a play, which apparently played to smash reviews when it opened in 1922. It’s themes of racism, classism and group loyalties are, sadly, ever-relevant and particularly timely.
If you’ve never been to Hunter’s Point, seeing Loyalties is a chance to visit this hip gentrified Queens neighborhood. The 7 Train drops you just three blocks from the theater, and Vernon Boulevard is home to an increasing number of wonderful restaurants, including Blend, a Latin Fusion restaurant, Bella Via, a wonderful Italian place that I hear has fabulous brick oven pizza, and El Ay Si, which serves global “comfort food”. Every one of these restaurants was packed the night we went to see Loyalties, and my only regret of the night was that we had already eaten dinner at home.
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Loyalties is running till Jan 30 at the Parlor at Cassino Restaurant, 47-18 Vernon Blvd in Long Island City. For reservations, call 718-361-5858 or go online at Unity Stage.org.
Read more about the play and the cast in the Woodside Herald.
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