It's the witching hour in Urbanite Theatre's 'Jennifer Who is Leaving'

Urbanite Theatre's “Jennifer, Who is Leaving” unfolds in a Massachusetts donut shop in the dead of night. Thanks to stormy weather, four characters get bottled up inside. The three women are all caretakers. The solitary man just doesn’t care.

Nan (Suzanne Grodner) is the donut shop’s senior manager. That job pays the bills. In her unpaid second job, Nan cares for Chuck, her recently retired husband. 

Being jobless has made him helpless — but Chuck’s found a solution. He’s turned Nan into his personal helpline. He incessantly calls her (at the donut shop!) with inane questions. Where are my keys? Where’s the remote? What’s the red button do? Nan keeps smiling and patiently answers.

 Lili (Trezure B. Coles) is young, gifted and Black. She cares for her younger siblings at home — for free. Lili’s is also a part-time donut wrangler, but it’s not her dream job. She’s taking her SATs first thing tomorrow morning. So why is Lili working the night shift now? Because her demanding dad forced her to. A lesson in responsibility, maybe. But Lili doesn’t need it. She’s self-motivated as hell. 

With Nan’s permission, she’s cramming for the test, not slinging donuts. There’s not a customer in sight, so why not? Then Jennifer (Summer Dawn Wallace) bursts into the shop — along with Joey (Averill-Snell), her elderly, foul-mouthed, wheelchair-bound companion. 

They’re not customers; Jennifer’s a nurse’s aide, the old man’s her patient, and her van broke down. Nan smiles and lets them stay until the tow truck arrives. 

Joey never smiles. He’s a two-year old brat in an 80-something body. He whines, pouts, crumbles donuts on the floor, kicks over mop buckets, curses, and insults every woman in sight.

 Despite Joey’s tantrums and Chuck’s relentless phone calls, Jennifer, Nan and Lili still have fun. They turn up the Muzak and dance to ABBA’s “Dancing Queen,” gossip about their husbands and kids, and generally goof around. 

Against all odds, these women are happy. Joey hates their happiness— and hates Jennifer most of all. To wipe the smile off her face, Joey turns his vitriolic abuse up to 11.  As the night goes on, he gets on Jennifer’s nerves, works her down to her last nerve, and pushes her to the breaking point. You know she’s going to snap. But when Jennifer takes a hard left turn at the play’s end, it still takes you by surprise.

That summary sounds bleak, but don’t get the wrong idea. This isn’t “No Exit” with donuts. Morgan Gould has written a very funny play. Sartre’s characters were trapped; Gould’s have an exit strategy.

Putting the audience to the test

Director Céline Rosenthal plops you into the play’s pressure-cooker world. Gould’s script has a granular realism, but that’s a means to an end. Her play’s no sociological study. It’s an empathy test. You believe in her characters — but do you care about them? That test is baked into the script. Rosenthal puts it on stage — and puts the audience to the test.

The four actors are all in top form. Grodner’s Nan is a heroic optimist. She always looks on the bright side of life. She sees the donut, not the hole and never stops smiling. 

Coles’ Lili isn’t smiling. This shiny, happy donut shop is her prison. Lili approaches her impending exam like a POW tunneling out of Stalag 17. It’s her only way out! If Lili fails, she might wind up like Nan. Coles conveys Lili’s need to escape that life sentence. 

Image courtesy of Sorcha Augustine

Wallace’s portrayal of Jennifer is a shape-shifting transformation. The actor’s melted away into her character — to the point you don’t recognize the actor anymore. Jennifer’s carrying a lifetime’s weight of fatigue, sleep deprivation and internalized insults. She’s keeping it together, but not forever. And not for long. 

Averill-Snell’s potty-mouth Joey is sadistic, solipsistic, sociopathic, vicious, narcissistic, vindictive and cruel. He's an odious person. Or the brain-damaged wreckage of a person. Joey’s a demolished man with a ruined mind. Before he lost his mind, he might’ve been a nice guy. But he’s a jerk now.

Jeff Weber’s set design doesn’t sneer at working-class hangouts. His donut shop is a refuge. Weber respects that. Dee Johnson’s costumes reflect the folks who need this shelter from the storm. Alex Pinchin’s sound design and Ethan Vail’s lighting create a counterpoint of welcoming warmth and claustrophobic isolation. The donut shop is this play’s microcosmic world. These Urbanite talents make it visible.

Brilliant or not, acting, directing and design are still just storytelling tools. Gould’s play gave Urbanite’s creative team a powerful story to tell. For me, that’s all a playwright needs to do. But “Jennifer, Who is Leaving” also has message. Something like …

Caretakers do the nurturing work of American. It’s hard work — and usually women’s work. It’s done by nurses, nurses aids, teachers — but also wives and mothers. Some get paid a little; some get nothing. Paid or not, these caretakers hold American society together. But almost nobody cares for them. 

Gould does. After seeing her play, you will too.