By Ron Cohen

 

The leading character is named Hester, she is a single mom, and she does tote the letter “A” on her persona. Suzan-Lori Parks’ Fucking A was, as the playwright has frequently said, inspired by Nathaniel Hawthorne’s mid-19^th Century novel, The Scarlet Letter. But beyond these salient facts, the play bears little resemblance to Hawthorne’s story of Puritanical morals, sin, redemption and forgiveness.

 

Rather the play seems like a not-too-distant offshoot from the tragedies of the Greeks, in its depiction of seemingly capricious and cruel twists of fate on seemingly, but not totally, blameless mortals. Furthermore, its setting in a harshly repressed society infuses the narrative with a contemporary and pertinent sensibility, in which the have-nots are locked in endless and overwhelming conflict with the haves. It’s a sensibility heightened by Parks’ bow to Brechtian techniques, including the interjection of songs (written by Parks herself in appropriate Kurt Weill style) to underscore or intellectually defuse intense turns of plot or elaborate on revelations of character.

 

In the current revival by Signature Theatre under the go-for-broke direction of Jo Bonney, these factors are given full play. The script, first produced in Houston, Texas, in 2000 and then given an Off-Broadway premiere by the Public Theater in 2003, builds relentlessly to tragic heights.

 

While in Hawthorne’s novel the “A” stands for adultery, here it identifies an abortionist. Rather than embroidered on her clothes, the letter is branded on her chest, and despite the cruelty of it, Hester sees it as identifying her as a professional.  She plies her trade in “a small town in a small country in the middle of nowhere” and the tale unwinds with a mythic quality.

 

Hester’s son has been in prison since childhood. When he was little, Hester washed floors for a rich family. When the hungry boy stole a piece of meat, the family’s young daughter told on him, resulting in his being sent to jail. Now, while Hester keeps feeding hard-earned money into something called the Freedom Fund, looking to buy at least a picnic rendezvous with her long unseen son, the rich daughter is married to the town’s mayor. It’s a marriage that has yet to produce an heir, much to the mayor’s displeasure with his wife. And guess who the mayor’s mistress is? None other than Hester’s best friend, Canary Mary.

 

It all may sound like a soap opera ready to implode, but Parks’ lean and fierce writing, well-seasoned with a dark and sometimes quirky humor; the commitment of a sterling cast, and Bonney’s intense staging can catch you up and carry you along like a tidal wave.

 

 

When she first appears, Christine Lahti’s Hester, with her straggly hair and her apron splattered with the blood of her workaday world, is a weary but fearsome vision. However, in due time she reveals the maternal dedication that burns at the center of her being. And when circumstances finally move her to take her long-contemplated revenge on the mayor’s wife, her cry for vengeance is shattering.

 

 

Among others in the sterling cast, Elizabeth Stanley brings a palpable poignancy to the mayor’s wife, and Joaquina Kalukango imbues Canary Mary with a charming but practical vivacity. As the mayor, Marc Kudisch displays with vigor the all-too-familiar and questionable bonhomie of the unrelenting politician.

 

 

Brandon Victor Dixon captures both the vulnerability and the jail-bred malevolence of Hester’s son. As the town butcher who’s a suitor for Hester’s affections, Raphael Nash Thompson fairly glows with good-heartedness.  Delineating how much they have in common, the butcher notes he also has an offspring – his daughter – in jail, and Thompson’s understated but yards-long listing of the various crimes she has committed – from jay-walking to espionage to “general dismemberment” -- turns Parks’ play for several joyous moments into a veritable laugh riot.

 

Completing the cast are J. Cameron Barnett, Ben Horner and Ruibo Qian as a trio of merrily sadistic bounty hunters, who sing nastily about how they don’t eat what they catch. What they catch are escaped prisoners, and while they may not dine on their captives, they do like to torture them. The three actors, like several others in the company, take on multiple roles. In particular, Horner’s depiction of a prisoner satisfying a ravenous hunger at a picnic lunch is electrifying. In contrast, Kudisch is hauntingly still and buried under a long, grey wig just about unrecognizable as a dead-drunk scribe, a fellow who writes letters for the town’s illiterate denizens.

 

Furthermore, when they’re not playing townspeople, several of them scurry to the upper levels of Rachel Hauk’s gritty and foreboding set to grab musical instruments to accompany the show’s songs or provide underscoring.

 

Yet another layer of theatricality is the foreign language Parks has invented called Talk. It’s used by the women of the town when discussing womanly matters. Translations are projected on the set, and the language can get as raw as the play’s title.

 

In fact, Parks’ writing here in general may be too raw, too brutal for some tastes, but she uses such elements cannily, mixing them in well into her distinctive approach to gripping, masterful storytelling.

 

Signature certainly is recognizing the genius of her playwriting by mounting two of her plays at the same time. The other play is called In the Blood, and like Fucking A was inspired by Hawthorne’s novel. It’s the first time that Signature has done concurrent productions for one of its resident playwrights. Audiences seem to be responding. Both plays have seen one-week extensions of their limited engagements.

 

Off-Broadway play

Playing at the Signature Theatre

480 West 42^nd Street

212-244-7529

Playing until October 8