'In The Blood' Bleak, powerful evocation of injustice toward poor

"The poor you will always have with you," Christ said to his disciples, and for the next two millennia the poor have persisted, along with the social hypocrisy and politics of poverty that partially perpetuate their existence.

Suzan-Lori Parks' play In The Blood takes aim at these causes in the story of a homeless woman, Hester (Ashley Everage), and her children, struggling to survive the daily challenges not only of finding food and securing shelter, but also of navigating a hostile society that refuses to support her.

Theatre Horizon's bleak yet riveting production features captivating performances, led by Everage and Tony Award-nominee Forrest McClendon, and backed by a strong design team.

If art can make squalor vibrant and destitution sublimely beautiful, Horizon has done it, opening up its stage to let the broken overpass of Brian Dudkiewicz's set careen toward the audience and tower over the piles of revenue-generating recyclable cans and plastic sheets that Hester uses to shelter her five children.

Larry Fowler's sound design doesn't evoke the roar of cars or sounds of the city so much as it punctuates and underscores, in an eerie, horror-movie fashion, the injustices that befall Hester and the confessions of those that commit wrongs against her. These confessions come from a welfare worker (Cathy Simpson), a pro-sterilization doctor (Sam Sherburne), and a clergyman (McClendon), and amplify the injustice as Hester falls further victim to institutions designed to protect and help her.

Under Pirronne Yousefzadeh's potent direction, I could barely catch my breath, let alone process thoughts after each matter-of-fact retelling of assault and manipulation. The aim may be to mirror the day-to-day struggle the homeless face - credit the production and cast for magnifying the tragic potential of the script.

Parks drew on Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter for this modern retelling of Hester's social exile. But in Parks' play, which shines a hot light on the forces of hypocrisy and social injustice that worsen an already bad situation, gives us no character who fights to redeem her. (At least Hawthorne's original had Hester's husband, Roger Chillingworth.)

There is no way to hope for Hester's eventual salvation and reintegration here. We used to look to religion to help confront these social ills, but even Hawthorne understood that the church's hypocrisy often contributed more to the problem than to the solution for the disenfranchised.

Two millennia of religion and politics couldn't solve homelessness and poverty. We shall have to see what art and artists can do.