Alfred Morris doesn't want help. Alfred Morris doesn't need help. Alfred Morris won't accept help.
Not from his two grown daughters, about whom he has only vulgar things to say.
Not from this Polish woman who has appeared in his too-large-for-just-him home in London in 2011. The West Indian Alfred derides this relatively new arrival from as a foreigner.
Not from anyone.
When we meet Alfred he's downright unlikeable. He scowls. He uses his words to cut. The world should keep its distance.
Tsebiyah Mishael Derry is Gemma and Brian D. Coats is Albert in Kwame Kwei-Armah's "Let There Be Love," in its final weekend at Penguin Rep in Stony Point. Courtesy Penguin Rep
Kwame Kwei-Armah's "Let There Be Love," in its final weekend at Penguin Rep in Stony Point, has so much going for it that it scarcely matters that we've seen this story time and time again: a curmudgeon learns, eventually, to open his heart thanks to the efforts of an outsider.
William Hurt had that quirky Geena Davis character in "The Accidental Tourist." Archie Bunker had Meathead. Scrooge had his ghosts.
In "Let There Be Love," Albert has Maria, his home health-care aide, whom he initially dismisses by calling her by her nationality, "Polish." He's sharing nothing with her, not even his first name. She's reduced to calling him by the name on the form that sent her to him: A. Morris, which she pronounces "Maurice."
Albert's daughter, Gemma, has been out of the picture for three years, kept at bay by strained family relations, which is just fine by Albert.
Brian D. Coats is Albert. Tsebiyah Mishael Derry is Gemma. Amanda Kristin Nichols is Maria. They are uniformly good.
Coats makes the shift -- you know there's a shift coming -- with nuance. His smile -- you hope there'll be a smile -- is a revelation. His transformation -- you yearn for that transformation -- late in the action reveals the arc of his acting ability, a fully formed character in the best of hands.
Derry's role has considerable challenges, which she handles deftly. There's her accent (hat tip to dialect coaches Sheldon Best and Lauren Singerman), there's her situation, and there's so much unsaid. Gemma's role is underwritten and Derry fleshes her out.
Nichols, as Maria, strikes just the right notes, managing to master another tricky accent while bringing so much heart to the character. By the time costume designer Katherine Roth puts Maria in a sweater covered in smiley faces with hearts for eyes -- the outer revealing the inner -- Maria has won us, and Albert, over.
There's another character here. Make that two. Albert's cherished antique console stereo, "Lily," plays an outsized role here, as does the velvety music of Nat King Cole.
Brian D. Coats is Albert and Amanda Kristin Nichols is Maria in Kwame Kwei-Armah's "Let There Be Love," in its final weekend at Penguin Rep in Stony Point. Courtesy Penguin Rep
Nat, Albert tells Maria, has all the answers, and Bart Fasbender's sound design delivers Cole in all his warmth.
Director Maria Mileaf keeps things moving at a steady clip, but knows when to take time, when to let the characters inhabit the impressive space created by set designers Christopher and Justin Swader and dressed impeccably by Buffy Cardoza.
What it comes down to is home. The home we are born to, the home we make.
The home that arrives when a Polish woman arrives on cranky man's doorstep. The home that changes when a hippie Meathead takes a Bunker bride. The home created when a quirky dog-trainer trains a travel writer to think a different way. The home that is transformed when a long-dead business partner and a trio of specters remind a miser of how good he has it.
Yes, it's a story we know, but it's a story we can't hear enough.
Kwei-Armah is treading familiar ground here and he realizes these pieces are a bit of a dance, one move answered by another. The final moments of "Let There Be Love" bring a twist we have been told to expect, but they still managed to bring tears in the lovely barn on Crickettown Road.
Sometimes, even if you known every note and lyric to the song, the end of a dance can still make you cry.
Three performances of "Let There Be Love" remain. At 3 and 7 p.m., Oct. 14. At 2 p.m., Oct. 15. Tickets at http://www.penguinrep.org or by calling 845-786-2873.
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