The Rochester Community Players are following the news. They’re aware that ICE’s escalated detainment campaign has separated local families. They have their eyes on federal attempts to override procedure and impose a detention facility on State Street. They know the Batavia detention center is expanding. Their response is a staging of the deeply emotional play “A Good Farmer” by Sharyn Rothstein, which runs at MuCCC through October 24.
This production succeeds as more than just political commentary. It’s an engaging night of theater, effortlessly alternating between comedic and melancholy registers. But the emotional punch lands harder knowing these issues are not just confined to the play’s setting of 2006 — the era of flip phones and manual radios — they’re happening in Rochester now. Director Maria Scipione dedicates the work to Omar Ramos and Dolores Bustamante, two community members who have been detained by ICE in the past year.
Set in nearby Elba, New York, and based on true events reported there by “The New York Times,” “A Good Farmer” opens with widow Bonnie Johnson (played with gumption and heart by Kathryn Rebholz) addressing her deceased husband about the woes of her cabbage farm. It may sound like a downer, but the beginning of the play rolls along like a comedy. Bonnie is far past caring what anyone thinks of her. She goes to her son’s elementary school bake sale without wearing a bra. She sings and dances to “Bitch” while making pot roast. When local scumbag Gabe DuBay (a deceptively unassuming Crescenzo Scipione) threatens her migrant employees, she reminds him of her shotgun.
The first act is grounded in her interactions with two women. There’s her frenemy Rosemary Devlin (the hilariously perky Helana Shumway), who takes PTO and pep rallies deadly seriously. More significant is her long-term Mexican employee Carla Gutierrez (the strong-willed and upbeat Ashley Valdés Garcell). Despite the power imbalance in their professional relationship, the two women share a close friendship.
The next act takes a melancholy turn with a flashback to Bonnie and Carla’s rocky origins, aided by Bonnie’s fatally ill husband David (played by Ian Remmers, who strikes the perfect balance between affable and morose) and a fiercely compassionate nurse Lu (a no-nonsense Amy Taipale Canfield). The ensemble is rounded out by Grace Judge and Larry Ploscowe, who appear as an officer and lawyer respectively in the third act’s thorny legal drama. Each act is punctuated with haunting sung interjections by a mysterious veiled figure (the commanding Lydia del).
Under Scipione’s thoughtful direction (expanding upon a 2023 staged reading she directed for the Hourglass Play Reading Series at Blackfriars), this production makes excellent use of the intimate MuCCC stage. The set designed by John R. Jaeger consists of large painted panels suggesting the farm’s fields, with two surprise rotating panels that reveal Bonnie’s kitchen and the school gym. A green canopy of lights arches over the stage. Lush lighting design by Kenneth DeBot and simple but effective costume design by Zahava Alston help build the world of the story.
The production choices keep at bay the threat of melodrama in Rothstein’s script, where the characters who suffer the most are also the most good-natured and high-spirited. It’s harder to hide the central irony of the piece, which — following in the American tradition of narratives like “To Kill a Mockingbird” — demonstrates the wrongness of racism by focusing on how it impacts white people.
This play is less for the people most impacted by the topic (undocumented immigrants) and more for the well-intended allies. Which, given the people putting on and likely to attend an English-language show, is probably intentional. It’s a play that believes white people can change and learn to see the humanity in their marginalized neighbors. It’s rosy in its view, but also very clear-eyed about the realities of this country, leading to a devastating conclusion. The moral is not ambiguous. “First they came for the undocumented,” one might say.
Theater happens in the present tense, and this production recognizes what’s happening in the current moment and is unafraid to speak out. The show has good intentions and even if the script falls short at times, it’s reassuring to know that amidst the expansion of ICE, amidst disinformation and fear-mongering, people still have good intentions.
“A Good Farmer” runs through October 24 at MuCCC. More info and tickets here.
Katherine Varga is a Rochester-based writer and arts educator. On an ideal day, you’ll find her biking to a library or theater.
