Between Riverside and Crazy review

Investigating intersecting themes of grief, race, shame and addiction, Stephen Adly Guirgis’ knotty dramedy is overstuffed and tonally inconsistent – yet still gripping. Set in a palatial, decaying apartment in New York, the play, directed in this UK premiere by Michael Longhurst, focuses on irascible former cop ‘Pops’ Washington. He’s in a downward spiral following his wife’s death, drinking whiskey for breakfast and filling his home with a fractious, found family of petty hustlers and recovering addicts.

Guirgis’ dialogue is funny, sparky and sharp, capturing a demotic working-class New York register that is heavy with attitude, irony and gritty wit. The plot itself is less lively, telling a familiar story about distant fathers and disappointing sons struggling towards mutual understanding. Moments of jarring earnestness disrupt the otherwise nuanced writing, unnecessarily drawing clear moral lines through the thorny thicket of ulterior motives, lies and confounded assumptions the play’s characters build around themselves.

Longhurst gives the piece a pleasingly dynamic staging, leaning into the humour and providing purposeful movement. The chaotic characters keep up an appearance of domestic normality, continually tidying, topping up glasses or stacking suspicious boxes implied to contain stolen goods. As tensions increase and Washington’s future balances on a knife edge, elements of the stage seem to come loose – walls rotate and floors shift on Max Jones’ busy set; characters gather to smoke weed on an elevated catwalk overhead. Subtle touches remind us of Washington’s deceased wife’s presence, from the chintzy floral curtains to the wheelchair serving as a seat at the crowded breakfast table.

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