Good People is a remarkable play with a cast of six players and a tangle of ambiguities that send you out of the theater wondering what just happened. Whoare the “good” people in David Lindsay-Abaire’s 2011 play, and what defines them as good? The Unicorn Theatre and the Kansas City Actors Theatre have gathered an engrossing sextet of actors for a funny, hard-edged and beautifully written play that was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Play. Mark Robbinsdirects. Set in South Boston’s earthy Lower End and in the trendy Boston suburb of Chestnut Hill, the play revolves around the destinies of Margaret (“Margie,” Jan Rogge) – a working-class mother who has just been fired from her job at the Dollar Store by twinky assistant manager Stevie (Phillip Russell Newman) – and Mike (Scott Cordes), a high school boyfriend who has fled “Southie” for the affluent lifestyle of a doctor. (In Southie lingo he’s turned “lace curtain.”) Margie plays bingo with her girlhood friends, Dottie and Jean (Kathleen Warfel and Manon Halliburton), in a neighborhood so close-knit there are no secrets.

In desperation the newly unemployed Margie visits Mike’s office to apply for a job, but when she is rebuffed she finagles an invitation to one of the good doctor’s fancy parties. When she “accidentally” misses the message that the party has been cancelled, she is the only guest. There she meets Kate (Dianne Yvette), the doctor’s wife, who is African American and at first mistakes Margie for a caterer. Stuffiness quickly turns to warmth, though, as race, class and gender conflicts become jumbled: The bourgeois Kate immediately bonds with Margie – feminine bonds trumping all – and Mike becomes the outsider, at least for now. But when the suggestion arises that Margie’s mentally challenged daughter might be Mike’s, and the subject of compensation rears its head, Kate turns on Margie.

But wait: Did Margie lie about the girl being premature, and is it then really Mike’s? And did she break up with the father of her unborn child right before he went off to medical school in order to help him escape Southie – in much the same way Ben Affleck urged Matt Damon to use his brains to break out of the ‘hood? Is she exploiting the situation for gain (or deliberately choosing not to)? By the end we’re not sure, but a welcome epilogue suggests that real virtue exists not in what we have achieved or in how “nice” we’ve been, but in maintaining hope for the future no matter how bleak it may look.

Good People runs through March 24^th. For tickets call 816-531-7529 or go to unicorntheatre.org.

PLAYING TO ITS STRENGTHS, MOSTLY

The Harriman-Jewell Series is known for taking chances on adventurous soloists and ensembles from around the world: Earlier this season it hosted the inaugural concert of the first-ever U.S. tour by the 52-year-old National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba. Then on March 1^st the Series presented a rare concert by the China National Symphony Orchestra with principal guest conductor En Shaoand piano soloist Peng-Peng Gong, in a program that was at once bewildering and fascinating. After a witty  introduction by the conductor – in which he called Helzberg Hall “something quite astounding” – the orchestra embarked on the first movement of Xia Guan’s beautiful Requiem of the Earth, which in its full 70-minute length is a contemplation on the 2008 earthquake in China’s Sichuan Province. The opening, “Gazing at the Stars: Meditation for Orchestra” was tantalizing enough as to make one eager to hear the whole piece. The sweet, clean sound of strings and harp at the opening can’t help but remind us of Mahler, with nods to the Adagietto and perhaps even the finale to the Ninth Symphony. As the music grew fuller and more sweeping it began to sound vaguely cinematic, with “big melodies” and spicy textures mixing “East and West.” In the end the major mode won out, a whisper of hope.

Peng-Peng began his career as a child prodigy and came to the U.S. at age 9 to study at the Juilliard School’s pre-college division. Since then he has devoted time to a parallel career as a composer, while continuing his piano studies at Juilliard. We are accustomed to artists who mature early, and Peng-Peng is on the way to becoming a pianist of note, but his performance of the Tchaikovsky Concerto No. 1 was a bit of a puzzler. Clearly he has technique to spare and a huge tone when he needs it, yet in slow passages he was prone to drifting off into a dreamy haze, and virtuosic sections were filled with odd quirks and sforzando outbursts. One has the impression of an artist who is still developing, and this was not aided by the orchestra’s rocky accompaniment. From the odd tempos (including a glacial first-movement opening) to the unconventional wind and brass sonorities, the performance felt strained and too often lacked a sense of collaborative interplay between soloist and orchestra.

After jogging offstage and back on a few times, as an encore Peng-Peng played an admittedly clever concatenation of the American and the Chinese national anthems (one with each hand) to celebrate “the diplomatic friendship between the U.S. and China,” in the soloist’s words. The result was a mildly embarrassing moment in which one wasn’t sure whether it was appropriate to stand or not. Was this “The Star-Spangled Banner,” or had it become something else altogether? One tried not to think of the amusing incident in 1944 in which the State of Massachusetts chided Stravinsky for a slightly-off-kilter arrangement of the national hymn.

The program’s second half was a genuine departure, so much so that the group almost sounded like a different orchestra. Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 found the musicians on better footing, and found En Shao more in command. Tempos were quick in a “contemporary” way, at times too much so, but the ensemble was taut and sonorities were bright and tempered. At times one wished for more “interpretation,” but by the final Allegro con brio the orchestra seemed to be glorying in the music’s sheer headlong energy.

AN AMERICAN CLASSIC, STILL AS FRESH AS EVER

Kansas City’s Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre has never shied from ambitious projects, and each season it seems to take on bigger and more vaunted productions. When the company had to cancel Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, artistic director Karen Paisley on short notice pulled an alternative out of a hat: a revival of Ntozake Shange’s 1975 “choreopoem” For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf. I remember encountering this title as a youngster and thinking (a) Wow, American literature sure has come a long way since Silas Marner (literature by African Americans, Latinos and others was still absent from our schools) and (b) How cool is it when you can summarize not just the subject of a stage work but a central conceit of contemporary life … in the title of a play?

Directed by Karen and performed in the MET’s intimate space on Main Street, the show was well put-together and featured a cast and production that was strong enough to remind us of just how “contemporary” this play still seems, nearly 40 years after its first Broadway production in 1976. For Colored Girls is essentially a series of free-verse poems that tell tales of heartache and triumph: stories of women who find their voices, “speak and sing,” to the rhythms of life. Each of the seven women is dressed in a different color and referred to accordingly: “The Lady in Green,” etc. Each represents, loosely, an urban area: Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Baltimore, San Francisco, Manhattan, St. Louis.

All run onstage at the outset and freeze, and thus begins a picturesque, meandering yet ultimately coherent series of stories. From first love and early intellectual life to rape and pregnancy, from war to peace and beyond. One story is an oblique description of abortion. The Lady in Yellow (Aishah Harvey) tells of losing a literary contest on a technicality then meeting a boy who shares the given name of her historical idol. “I felt Toussaint Louverture sorta leave me and I waz sad, til I realized Toussaint Jones waznt too different from Toussaint L’Ouverture cept the ol one waz in hait & this one wid me speakin english & eatin apples yeah.” Others tell of school dances and overly eager boys, of living in rough neighborhoods, of AIDS. Interspersed are songs and dances, spontaneous outbursts of creative energy. The Lady in Brown Victoria Barbee) sings quietly in an intense, vibrant voice as the Lady in Green tells a story over her song. The drama culminates in a chilling story about a young man who returns from war “crazy as hell,” and the tragedy that ensues. (The playwright herself has updated references to Vietnam to those of our current wars.) In the end the ladies find resolution of sorts, learning to life, to love oneself. “And I found God in myself … and I loved her … I love her fiercely.”

The MET’s cast includes Chioma Anyanwu, Donette Coleman, Lynn King, Sherri Roulette Mosley and Meredith Wolfe. The simple set includes an attractive drop painted by Jason Cole, with a sort of veined pattern that lent itself to shifting colors courtesy of lighting and sound designer Greg Casparian.

SOPRANO GEMS, BY STRAUSS

Strauss’ set of orchestral songs referred to as the Four Last Songs has long been a signature work for soprano Christine Brewer,and her magnificent performance of them 10 years ago with the Kansas City Symphony still rings in my ears. Recently she sang them again here, this time at Helzberg Hall with Michael Stern leading the Symphony, and it was gratifying to hear how much of the richness, sheen, tenderness and full-bodied texture in her voice have remained unchanged. Her middle range retains its breathless energy, especially in soft passages, and she continues to sing with an assertive and intelligent sense of line and phrase. If her upper register displays less flexibility and more wobble than a decade ago, her authority in these valedictory mini-masterpieces remains virtually unequalled.

On February 22^nd the opening “Frühling” was a bit tentative, with the shimmering orchestral sound not filling the hall quite as much as you’d expect. Christine imbued “September” with sweet melancholy, which was echoed beautifully by the horn solo. In “Beim Schlafengehen,” she seemed to pick up the orchestral line as if in mid-conversation, a somniferous effect that was enhanced by concertmaster Noah Geller’s gorgeous violin solo. Wafting as if from the night air, it and grew continually richer and more insistent. In the deliciously autumnal “Im Abendrot,” the orchestra again felt as if it needed more oomph, even sentiment, but Christine entered with just the right energy level, smoldering but forceful.

To reach Paul Horsley, performing arts editor, send email to phorsley@sbcglobal.net.