S: Is for Social Responsibility.

The Barrow Group, Theatre Company, seems to be the up-and-coming theatre group to watch. Celebrating their 23rd season, they are represented on Broadway with the star studded Steady Rain, as well as having an Off-Broadway hit with The Temperamentals. Last night they opened with the American premiere of Clare McIntyre's The Thickness of Skin. McIntyre asks, "In what ways are we responsible to help our fellow human beings?" I have a question for Ms McIntyre; Should not the people we are responsible for, show at least some form of graciousness and a willingness to help themselves? Though she makes her point in The Thickness of Skin, she elicits a reaction of ungratefulness and anger. We all fall on hard times but some of us get stuck because we wallow in self destructiveness. In The Thickness of Skin, everyone is stuck. Laura has stepped outside her unhappy and repressed life to help Eddie, a black man who has fallen on hard times. Laura, volunteers at the homeless center, she takes Eddie into her home, despite the centers rules, gets him work with her brother Michael. Eddie manipulates a sexual relationships with Laura who is ripe for the pickings due to her loneliness at Christmas time. Meanwhile at Michael's, his wife Roanne and he are stuck as they try to communicate and help their teenage son Jonathan. Jonathan has struck up a friendship with the eccentric neighbor, Imogen. Eddie who is unwilling to work for less, would rather play video games and collect welfare than work for minimum wage, for that would be degrading. He would rather blame everybody but himself than take responsibility for his past marriages and his children. When the center finds out, they blame Laura saying "If you wanted to help just give money." By the end Laura after being degraded by Eddie in every possible way forces $2000 upon him to ease....her guilt. I seriously wanted to jump up out of my seat and shake Laura and tell her she had nothing to be guilty over and to shove Eddie off the stage and let him wallow in his own self pity.

Did I like the play? It elicited a strong reaction from me. Do I think it does the theme a disservice...yes. There are people who have fallen on hard times and if this were the example I would say...NO! to helping them. For the people who still are fighting to keep their jobs, keep their homes and their lives........YES, a thousand times, yes. To those who live off the welfare system and drown and drug out and blame everyone but themselves....no.


The performances are all multi layered. Alison Wright as Laura is pathetic and lovable. We feel for her. Michael Chenevert as Eddie is the perfect manipulative loser. Myles O'Connor as Michael shows us why men work 24/7 so as not to deal with anything else. Karin Sibrava as Roanna is wonderful in her last speech about who she wishes she was. Eli Gelb ("The Squid & the Whale") is Jonathan and is the right choice for the youth on the verge of manhood. Wendy Vanden Heuvel doubling as Imogen and Christine steals the play with her insightful portrayal of the Imogen, who has lost her touch with reality, yet still trying to connect.

The Thickness of Skin runs through Nov. 9 at The Barrow Group's Studio Theatre, 312 W. 36th Street, 3rd Floor, in Manhattan.
www.barrowgroup.org.

We may have a responsibility but we need to also take responsibility and that is a F.A.C.T.