Theatre in Review: A Good Day to Me Not to You (Waterwell at the Connelly Theatre)

	Lameece Issaq. Photo: Maria Baranova

A convent? What's a nice girl like Lameece Issaq doing in a place like that? All right, it's not Issaq, it's the character at the center of her new solo show. And Issaq isn't a girl but, rather, a mature theatre artist whose resume includes Food and Fadwa, an illuminating family comedy-drama set in the West Bank. To be sure, A Good Day to Me Not to You is not a drama about religious vocations; it's the portrait of a fortysomething woman whose retreat behind convent walls is the most potent symbol of a personal crisis that finds her at a crossroads she doesn't want to face.

By her own admission, our narrator is careening on a downward slope. Having dropped out of dental school, she is saddled with crippling debts. Then she loses her job in a dental lab (for cause, I rush to add). In disarray, she is hired as a nanny for her nephew Samm, her sister having died in childbirth. Looking to cut expenses, she takes a room at St. Agnes, an Upper West Side religious residence that rents rooms to single women. (This is a real thing, which offers affordable living to students, the elderly, and those new to the city.)

It's a sort of life, stable but uninspiring; the narrator has a room of her own but shares a bathroom and kitchen with a crowd of eccentrics, including Dorothy, who, daily, greets her with a gimlet stare and the semi-curse that provides the play's title. On the job, she is Samm's substitute mother, a pleasant, if slightly awkward, arrangement. But when her brother-in-law decides to resettle in California with his girlfriend, the narrator is suddenly bereft. Her mother, in Lebanon, sends her $5,000, telling her to have a baby. At her age, however, this is easier said than done. For one thing, there's the outbreak of genital warts she has been treating with apple cider vinegar. Then there's her general lack of enthusiasm about sex. And, of course, her age: As her OB/GYN tells her, "You still have eggs, but those eggs are in wheelchairs."

That last comment is a clue to a big problem with A Good Day to Me Not to You, which struggles to treat its sad story and borderline-pathetic heroine with wisecracks and sketch-comedy setups. The other ladies at the convent include a "shaman" who informs the narrator, "You have a spiritual infection in your intentions...and your vagina." Complaining about the nuns' disused private kitchen, the narrator snaps, "These bitches do not even cook. They belong to a secret religious order: Her Lady of Perpetual Take Out." Holding forth on Catholic tradition, she says, "Take the patron saint of dentists, St. Apollonia. She had all her teeth knocked when some dude punched her in the mouth for not renouncing her faith. She understands your root canal." Issaq tries to make like Joan Rivers but her heart isn't really in it.

The narrative is loaded with too-cute inventions that have little connection to reality. The narrator's dental lab antics, which get her fired, include willfully altering tooth molds before night guards are made from them, an act of self-sabotage that requires more examination. (She also has a grating penchant for describing the other characters' dentitions, commenting on their color and the placement of fangs.) Daunted by the cost (running to tens of thousands of dollars) of going through a sperm bank, she hires the services of Gabe, a male prostitute she meets on the subway. To get him up to her room -- no males are allowed at St. Agnes -- she orders him to dress as a woman; he arrives attired as an angel. Get it? It's a parody of the Virgin Birth in which the narrator rushes to the fertility clinic carrying a condom filled with Gabe's sperm to fertilize a donor egg. Of course, the script never stops to wonder why a depressed, middle-aged woman with no friends, family support system, or job prospects has any business having a child, but let that pass.

The narrative gets even wobblier when it takes a serious turn, revealing painful secrets. (Just so you know, St. Agnes is the patron of the sexually abused.) In the climax, the narrator commits a desperate act that would be more affecting if it made sense. As it stands, she breaks a major convent rule without explaining how she managed it. The final wrap-up features a reconciliation with her brother-in-law -- who, if he were sensible, would probably get an injunction against her.

The director, Lee Sunday Evans doesn't address her star's slightly low-energy delivery, but she has gotten interesting work from her designers. Peiyi Wong's set appears at first glance to be a bare stage; look again, and you'll notice the little porthole-like window in the plastered wall and the tiny religious statuary tucked away here and there. It's a highly stylized approach that accurately conveys the feel of institutional church buildings. Mextly Couzin's lighting reshapes the space as needed, at one point effectively creating a stained-glass look. Composer Avi Amon sets the mood with Joni Mitchell singing "Big Yellow Taxi," and provides such effects as bells and birdsong. Jian Jung has dressed Issaq in a manner that fully comports with her character's mental state.

It's telling that, of the many other characters, the only one who comes alive is Samm; the others are little more than shadows. The focus is entirely on the narrator's problems, which, too often, feel shrouded in falsity. The story ends on a final grace note that offers a bit of hope to the put-upon heroine. But I wonder if she'll ever get out of that convent. --David Barbour