A Good Day to Me Not to You, Kogod Cradle, Arena Stage, Washington, DC

 

Constance Zayroun in A Good Day to Me Not to You in the Kogod Cradle at Arena Stage, through May 3. Photo credit: Daniel Rader.

A Good Day to Me Not to You (into which I would desperately like to insert a comma), the title of Arena Stage’s current offering by Lameece Issaq in its Kogod Cradle space, draws its title from a conversation conveyed by the central character early in the play. In a bit of conflict with a woman whose space she has disturbed, the offended one wants to ensure that the woman infringing on her space understands that she is by no means wishing “a good day” to the offender, but only to herself. That contretemps is just one of many our central character will relate to us during the 90 minutes in which we, her audience, become her confidante and to whom she will relate the story of her life in intimate and sometimes painful detail.

The playwright keeps her anonymous – the program calls her “the Narrator.” She doesn’t even have a name, or, if she does, finds it too personal to share. “Storyteller” would be more apt, I think, since she is the central character in the narrative she relates.

A single, fortysomething woman, she was once an aspiring dentistry student before a severe case of vertigo caused her to drop out. Now, though, she is a former dental lab technician with an extraordinary interest in the size, shape, and shade of the cuspids, bicuspids, molars, and incisors of all she encounters. She has been fired from her job in part because of her unhealthy obsession with the models and molds of the dental paraphernalia which she helps to create. A sequence of events has unfolded which has desperately changed her living circumstances. She has been booted from her happy existence as surrogate mother to the child whose birth caused her late sister’s death five years before (for reasons to be understood later). She has taken up residence in the house of St. Agnes. Once a convent, the building now serves as a mostly-temporary home for single women. As a result of the house’s affiliation with the Roman Catholic Church, the house has an extensive and cumbersome list of rules to which she must adhere, though the simple bottom line to the rules is: No men. She is at the end of her metaphorical rope, though there is one bright light at the bottom line: where else could she find an Upper West Side apartment in New York for $400 a month?

St. Agnes, we learn, is venerated as a martyr committed to innocence and virginity, but we are also told that she is the saint of sexual abuse survivors – understandable, but most likely not something being publicized in the early centuries of the last millennium. Among those our heroine meets in the house of St. Agnes are two nuns, one of whom (Sister John) she had feared early on, but with whom she develops an intimate, respectful relationship. Sister John’s backstory causes our heroine to question her own ideas about religion and the church, a place that can be painful but also reassuring. We meet a variety of other characters, including two men: James, the fellow dental student with whom she had once imagined a future, and the mysterious “Gabe,” who fulfills a need governed by her ideas of what is expected of women, though it will end in painful disappointment.

The play is often riotously funny, though moments later it is heartbreakingly poignant. Our heroine is a flawed individual whose questionable life choices have brought her to the point at which we meet her. Bit by bit, the onion is peeled until we see the inner storyteller at her most personal and vulnerable level.

Playwright Issaq starred in the original New York production of the play at the Waterwell Theatre Company, which accounts in part for its creation as a one-woman show, a genuine smorgasbord of emotions that provide a talented actor with a feast of material. I assume that parts of the story she shares were real events in her life. Now the very talented Constance Zaytoun takes on the role with such honest and natural delivery, it is as if she is sharing her own story.

Constance Zayroun in A Good Day to Me Not to You in the Kogod Cradle at Arena Stage, through May 3. Photo credit: Daniel Rader.

While I can appreciate this as a monologue, I can’t help but imagine a more traditional play that might have been, which might have used a handful of actors playing multiple roles, appearing in vignettes revealing events as they occur in the present and the past.

The Kogod Cradle is the most intimate (and least often used) of the three theatres at Arena Stage, and it provides the perfect environment for a one-person show. Even so, Zaytoun, under the direction of Lee Sunday Evans uses a great deal of the space. Peiyi Wong has designed a space that is simultaneously generic and blank, with its religiosity revealed subtly by the presence of elements of Christian iconography. Jian Jung has designed a layered costume that, like the play, peels away to reveal a woman wearing just a t-shirt and jeans. Mextly Couzin’s lighting design is used to maximum effect, highlighting moments and moods, adding suspense, with what appears to be a miraculous lighting of candles on high shelves, more than once. Avi Amon is credited as composer and sound designer, further enhancing the material. Even though this is a one-woman show, it obviously “takes a village” to put it all on stage.

A Good Day to You Not to Me continues at Arena Stage through May 3. Content advisories: the production uses adult language with verbal mentions of the following topics: sexual assault, sexual acts, child endangerment, miscarriage, sex work, STIs, and mental health institutionalization.

Constance Zayroun in A Good Day to Me Not to You in the Kogod Cradle at Arena Stage, through May 3. Photo credit: Tony Powell.