Marcia Norman's schizophrenic play cannily posits that splitting a personality is as simple as splitting an infinitive. The tentative Arlene (Jennifer Cetrone), who insists on using her full given name, beginning her first day of freedom after eight years in a correctional institute -- for a prostitution, burglary, and second-degree murder rap -- is a different person from her ferocious alter ego, her younger self, Arlie (Christy Moore), a damaged adolescent whose past is strewn with poverty and parental abuse and who has been cast off by society. Arlene vows to go straight; the chummy Bennie (Noah Peters), a prison guard who quits so he can drive her to the cruddy probation apartment that's just become vacant, has other ideas. Her sadistic mother (Nicole Fazio) has more barbs than the fence around the prison; lurking in the opportunistic wings is escapee Carl (Brendan McCarthy), Arlie's ex-lover, the unknowing father of her child, anxious to pimp the reborn Arlene out of her good intentions.
Arlene is haunted by her job-thwarting illiteracy, and by the spirit of Arlie, whose presence is a constant memory of the past. Cetrone and Moore are on the stage together, sometimes in the same room -- two facets of the same woman. Both actors are competent in their portrayals; Cetrone especially is emotionally moving. One prays her Arlene can stop herself at the precipice that could dump her back into crime and prostitution. There is, however, the confusing problem of the women's totally different physiques -- Moore small-boned, fair-skinned, and whisper-thin, Cetrone chunky and more olive-skinned. When her mother tells Arlene she's too thin, it makes no visual sense. Additionally headshaking is co-directors Andrew Hamrick and Miguel Perez's decision to open the play in the jail while the two women are in a seemingly sexual embrace.
The direction otherwise uses the cramped stage to its very best and realistic effect. Josh Lachs and Orion McCabe as Guards; Hamrick as the prison doctor; Samantha Schlossmann, doubling as the very essential Loudspeaker and stern School Principal; Elizabeth Santos as the Warden; Christina Valo as Ruby, a (maybe) helpful new neighbor; and Gannon Forrester as Ronnie are well and truly cast in supporting roles.
This is a scabrous, tough-minded piece, well-staged and probably educational where it needs to be, as in, "Get good parents, get an education, and don't screw up." This 1977 play is as relevant today as it ever was.
Presented by the Ground Up Theatre Company at the Actors Group Theatre, 4378 Lankershim Blvd., Universal City. Fri.-Sat. 8 p.m. Apr. 6-28. (323) 572-5044.