Prostitutes (and the criminal justice system itself) are on trial at the Unicorn’s Project Dawn
It’s hard to imagine a better cultural moment for the premiere of Project Dawn, a play about sex trafficking and the criminal justice system now onstage at the Unicorn Theatre.
The play unfolds in vignettes tied to the cases of Project Dawn, a “problem-solving court” in Philadelphia that offers recovering prostitutes a chance to clear their criminal records. The catch? They must plead “no contest” to all charges and successfully complete a four-stage program. If they fail or drop out, the charges stick.
Playwright Karen Hartman employs two de facto emcees to tie the cases together: Gwen (Jennifer Mays), the beleaguered public defender who started Project Dawn, and Kyla (Nedra Dixon), a district attorney who believes in its mission but is at times skeptical of its execution. Presiding is Judge Roberta Kaplan (Kathleen Warfel), a pragmatic but uneven judge with some cultural blind spots.
One of the play’s greatest strengths is its smart double-casting: each of the Unicorn’s seven actors plays both a prostitute and a court employee (or in one case, an acerbic nun). Director Heidi Van uses subtle visual cues — a change in hair style, an inversion of a single costume piece—to highlight the fragility of power and the narrow space between the women
Dixon anchors the Unicorn’s cast with her precise, specific portrayals of both Kyla and Shondell, a client nearing “graduation.” Vanessa A. Davis is equally effective as Lola, a soft-spoken prostitute, and Nia, the practical court coordinator. But there’s no weak point here: Amy Attaway is coolly compelling as a cocksure drug dealer, and Lanette King and Leah Swank-Miller give strong readings of how trauma can manifest in complicated ways.
One of the Unicorn’s best inventions is Emily Swenson’s set, which defines the courtroom with fractured arches and toppling columns — symbols of the fragility of justice, perhaps, but also highly functional frames. Sound designer David Kiehl builds a scene-change and preshow playlist that evokes ruin and resilience without ever veering into pseudo-inspirational, “This-is-My-Fight-Song” territory. And Georgianna Londré Buchanan’s costumes are unfettered fun, expressing a complex and specific vision of each character through her clothes.
Issue plays can be prone to preaching, but Hartman humanizes her characters more than she lionizes them. Challenges and failures earn as much stage time as successes — and both the prostitutes and their advocates are recognizably flawed. (“I don’t see color,” a reformed white hooker tells her black friend in an otherwise-inspirational speech. “That’s nice for you, baby,” her friend replies.)
But the play could use a little sandblasting to let its dramatic elements shine. Act II starts with a “power workshop,” a scene that doesn’t yet work — partly because of the awkward staging, and partly because it hints at a dramatic backstory for one character that Hartman isn’t prepared to explore. More often, the script overexplains, hitting the same emotional notes like a piano with a stuck key. Many scenes outside the courtroom could be cut with little detriment to the script, and several monologues could be halved to maintain momentum. It’s enough to hear Gwen joke with colleagues about her burned-out parenting and palliative drinking; we don’t also need to hear her lecture her unseen kids for 10 minutes while she gargles white wine.
At its best, Project Dawn maps the difficult territory between hope and naivety, between realism and relentless grime. And Van’s cast and crew give the script the levity and humanity it needs to command our fickle cultural consciousness.
Project Dawn
Through February 18 at the Unicorn Theatre, Levin Stage (3828 Main Street; 816-531-7529)
