Isabella Dunsieth, Darius Dotch, Terry Hempleman, Laura Esping, and Emil Herrera Photo by Dan Norman

The Riverside Drive address is highly desirable, the solid pre-war construction of the buildings that grace its length solid bulwarks against the outside. Rent control gives it, and the lives within, a sense of stability. But, as Guirgis shows us with biting humor, heart and clarity, the thick walls can't keep a host of psychic windstorms–all the things we call "crazy"–from blowing their way into their interior.

Walter was a New York City cop forced into retirement eight years ago when he was injured while off-duty by a series of shots fired by another officer. Walter is Black, the other cop was a white rookie, and Walter has been working on a race-based discrimination lawsuit against the city ever since. While he is at an age that, by now, he well might be retired, injury or not, those life-changing bullets cost Walter much more than his job.

Now, in addition to those losses, Walter grieves for his wife, who passed away a year ago. Since then, and likely during the illness that led to her death, Walter has neglected to keep up the apartment, focusing on his lawsuit with rabid bitterness. He has let his home slide into numerous code violations that make him a target for eviction, which the building's owner is eager to pursue and cash in on that rent increase. Given its Riverside Drive location, the apartment will go for ten times what he now pays.

There's more on Walter's plate: His son, Junior, recently released from prison, has moved in with him, and may not have totally foresworn his illegal activities. Junior brought his girlfriend Lulu with him, a bubbly but rather dim woman. Lulu tells Walter she is a studying accounting, though she dresses as if any accounts she keeps pay hourly rates. Walter has also taken in Junior's friend Oswaldo, a recovering drug addict. As children, both Lulu and Oswaldo had marginal, at best, parenting and Walter's place is the safe home they never had–so much so that they both call him Dad. This is sweet, but also means they are okay letting Walter take responsibility for them when he has trouble enough taking responsibility for himself.

This is plenty, no? No. On top of all this, Walter's former partner Audrey, who he mentored as a rookie on the force, comes for dinner with her police lieutenant boyfriend Dave. After a nice dinner, reminiscing about the old days, and the surprise announcement that Audrey and Dave are engaged, the boom gets lowered: Dave has been assigned to get Walter to take a settlement and make the lawsuit go away. While Audrey begs Walter to let the past go and get on with his life–and, by the way, walk her down the aisle–Dave lays out all that Walter stands to lose if he doesn't agree.

That's just about everything Walter contends with, though the weekly visits from a church lady don't help matters either; Walter's view of God is that, if there is a God, he hasn't done Walter any favors. There's also the puppy Junior brought home, having heard that it's good for a person who is grieving to have something to take care of, though Walter already has a house full of puppies of the human variety. Also, Walter has a round-the-clock drinking habit. Yes, he has a tendency to be his own worst enemy, but Guirgis' script makes everything about him real and has us rooting for him.

Stephen DiMenna, Park Square's executive artistic director, is at the helm as director of this production. He creates a sense that this collection of troubled and somewhat lost souls is a family unit, albeit one rife with dysfunction, and that the cozy apartment is Walter's fortress against the slings and arrows of the world. That apartment is rendered in a fantastic set design by Benjamin Olson that shows, in cutaway, the kitchen, living room, and a fire-escape that serves as a kind of outdoor confessional booth. The place shows evidence of having been an elegant, old-school Manhattan apartment, with touches such as its built-in bookcases, chandeliers, and once-fine–though now beaten to an inch of its life–flooring. You can see that, with enough spit and polish, the place could shine once again.

Emil Herrera is terrific as Walter. His shortcomings and bad choices are totally apparent, yet Herrera enables us to understand Walter's need to overlook his own rough edges and to sympathize with his plight. His delivery of the text is flawless, reacting in the most natural manner to the gauntlet of challenges he endures. Herrera makes it easy to grasp how Walter goes to pains to make Lulu and Oswaldo feel safe, yet he withdraws like a scared turtle into his shell when his own son tries to get real, threatening to rip the bandage off old wounds that Walter wants to believe are healed.

Laura Esping as Audrey and Terry Hempleman as Dave make a convincing pair. Esping packs a range of emotions into Audrey: swooning over her own engagement ring and the thoughts of her wedding, expressing genuine concern for her friend and mentor's wellbeing, and toughening up to present some unpleasant truths to Walter. Hempleman is effective as a man who expects to get what he wants, preferably while remaining pleasant, but willing to ratchet up the stakes and be as unpleasant as necessary.

Darius Dotch is persuasive as Junior, showing a tendency to contradictions (genuine concern for his dad's well-being, while not as scrupulous about his own affairs) that may be a trait handed down by Walter. Isabella Dunsieth is perhaps just a shade too much as Lulu–or perhaps it's that her costumes (Matt LeFebvre's designs) are a shade too little, as her character teeters on the edge of caricature, though Dunsieth does know her way around a laugh line. José Sabillón manages to make us care about Oswaldo, and even believe that he really is trying to straighten out, in spite of some glaring evidence to the contrary. Rounding out the cast is Kiko Laureano, compelling as the unlikely church lady, a small but catalytic role.

"Crazy" is an apt word for the various tribulations that cross Walter's threshold in that Riverside Drive apartment. Still, if the world circling around him is crazy, Walter has been ceding his power to that swirl, at least for the past eight years–and, based on some clues heard along the way, well before that. His bitterness at being a victim of a white supremacist society, his anger over losing his wife, his tendency to avoid dealing with his own issues by taking care of others, and his fear of being left unprotected if he loses his home, all these make a case that the "crazy" comes in good measure from within, as much as from the world outside the walls of that pre-war apartment building.

Guirgis poses the obvious question, "What can Walter do about any of this?" and its corollary, "Will he?" To the playwright's credit, as well as the director's, we never know the answer to those questions until the end–and even then, the door is left wide open for any number of possibilities. It is a great play that leaves its audience wondering about these things, and caring about the fate of its characters.

This has been a season of return for Park Square, after a couple of years of reorganization. This finely wrought production of Between Riverside and Crazy and Park Square's previous show, The Gin Game, also a Pulitzer Prize winner, bear evidence of its return to form as one of the Twin Cities' top purveyors of high-quality theatre.

Between Riverside and Crazy continues through June 8, 2025, at Park Square Theatre, 20 West Seventh Place, Saint Paul MN. For tickets and information, please visit www.parksquaretheatre.org or call 651-291-7005.

Playwright: Stephen Adly Guirgis; Director: Stephen DiMenna; Assistant Director: Maje Adams; Scenic Design: Benjamin Olsen; Costume Design: Matt LeFebvre; Lighting Design: Marcus Dilliard; Sound Design: Fred Kennedy; Assistant Sound Designer: Jaime Lupericio; Properties Design: Jenny Moeller; Fight and Intimacy Director: Annie Enneking; Director of Production: Austin Stiers; Production Manager: Molly Heil; Technical Director: Erin Gustafson; Stage Manager: Keara J. Lavandowska; Assistant Stage Manager: Holly Campbell.

Cast: Darius Dotch (Junior), Isabella Dunsieth (Lulu), Laura Esping (Detective Audrey O'Connor), Terry Hempleman (Lieutenant Dave Caro), Emil Herrera (Walter "Pops" Washington), Kiko Laureano (Church Lady), José Sabillón (Oswaldo).