City Hall is demanding more than his signature, the landlord wants him out, the liquor store is closed – and the Church won’t leave him alone. For ex-cop and recent widower Walter “Pops” Washington and his recently paroled son Junior, the struggle to hold on to one of the last great rent stabilized apartments on Riverside Drive collides with old wounds, sketchy new houseguests and a final ultimatum in this Pulitzer Prize-winning dark comedy from Stephen Adly Guirgis. For Pops and Junior, it seems the Old Days are dead and gone – after a lifetime living Between Riverside and Crazy.
But if Between Riverside and Crazy does start to leak steam after its inspired first act, the same cannot be said of the strong cast, especially with Stephen McKinley Henderson giving such a supercharged performance in the lead role. The play could not be in better hands.
However, it’s Henderson who shakes the stage. The wonderful actor, who’s been a regular for years in plays by August Wilson and Lorraine Hansberry and in films as far-removed as “Lady Bird” and “Dune,” gives the performance of his career and the Broadway season. He makes the complicated Walter a millions things at once — adorable, frightening, calculating, indifferent, reserved, commanding, a stand-up comic, a boozer — that combine into one indomitable theatrical force. It’s not the sort of showy, speechifying role that we usually laud out of habit. Often, Walter simply watches on. But as played by Henderson, he’s a man you won’t soon forget.
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