InterAct’s 'Down Past Passyunk' at the Adrienne

One of InterAct’s resident playwrights, A. Zell Williams, first came across the story while living in the neighborhood and thought it would make an interesting addition to InterAct’s politically aware agenda. And now, after several year’s work, InterAct is presenting the world premiere of A. Zell Williams’s Down Past Passyunk, a fictionalization inspired by the original Geno’s controversy. I wish I could report that Williams has delivered a retelling at least as interesting as the original story. Alas, no.

Williams chose not to follow the original events very closely, nor to examine the actual participants. He chose to fictionalize most of those involved and kept both characterization and plot to a minimum. We have the obnoxious racist owner, Nicky, his short-tempered daughter Sophia, earnest cop Stanley, who is trying to keep the neighborhood together, and Ignacio, the immigrant shop-owner from across the street who plays the role of peacemaker.

The plot is pretty basic. Nicky doesn’t like the way his old South Philly neighborhood is changing with the influx of Hispanic immigration, so he posts a sign at his cheesesteak shop requiring customers to speak English when ordering. This obviously creates racist tension in the neighborhood, which friendly neighborhood cop Stanley tries to defuse. There are lots of arguments and accusations back and forth; there are tragic turns of events involving Sophia and Stanley, which really have nothing to do with the ostensible main story, but are supposed to traumatize various characters into personal growth. And so, after several melodramatic plot points are played out, lessons are learned and peace is restored.

Really? I mean — really?

This is seriously simplistic writing wherein the playwright seems to have forgotten that a play needs characters first, with issues coming later. Here, characterization is basic at best, focusing almost entirely on Nicky’s racist rants and Stanley’s earnestness. But playwright Williams also pulls things out of the blue, such as a past relationship between Stanley and Sophia, in order to justify certain surprise melodramatic turning points that had me rolling my eyes.

Director Matt Pfeiffer didn’t help much with his leaden and artless direction, but to be fair, there wasn’t much that could be done with such an artlessly constructed script. Also, I generally liked the cast, but it was painful to watch them work in such a vacuum, with little character or plot to work with. Overall, Down Past Passyunk is a major misstep for InterAct.