Pedro Antonio Garcia, who is a criminal defense attorney as well as a playwright, explains in a program note that he wrote “The Witness Room” in “an attempt to explore moral issues within the questionable relationships among the police, the judges, and the district attorneys as they justify their behavior under color of law.” In other words, his play attempts to convince us that the criminal justice system is corrupt. It does so with a story that Garcia takes pains to invest with a gritty authenticity; he includes in the program a glossary of 35 legal terms and police slang used in the play, which director Will Blum puts into the mouths of a credibly tough-talking cast.
Yet, whether or not one agrees with the show’s worldview, the production that is opening tonight at AMT Theater is ultimately unpersuasive as a pointed slice-of-life legal drama, because some missteps both undermine its verisimilitude and lessen its dramatic impact.
The witness room of the title is basically a waiting room in Manhattan Criminal Court at 100 Centre Street — comically dilapidated, with God We Trust on the wall, and old cardboard boxes piled to the ceiling. This is where four plainclothes New York City police officers gather, for a hearing for a defendant they had arrested for possession of both a gun and cocaine. Assistant DA Andrea Volpi (Tricia Small), who is prosecuting the case, preps them for their testimony in front of a (never seen) judge. (I’m not a lawyer, but her prep to me seems indistinguishable from suborning perjury.) The (never seen) defense attorney has filed motions to throw out the cast. As Volpi explains it: “Suarez is saying that we’re lying, there was no gun, and that this is a fabrication to justify the illegal arrest of his innocent client, who was simply leaving the apartment to get some fresh air.”
All of this may in fact be true; the (off stage) testimony by the first couple of officers doesn’t go well; and then the fourth officer, Eli Torres (JD Mollison) has a crisis of conscience. Unlike the others, he believes that the defendant may in fact be completely innocent (taking the fall for his mother, who is a junkie.) Eli is considering going in front of the judge and contradicting what he said in his affidavit, which backed up the (false) assertions of the other officers. This would not just terminate the case; it could destroy their careers and even land them in prison. The others are furious. Eli tries to explain to them: “We’ll have to meet our maker some day, and we’ll be held to account for our actions, there will be an accounting, and I just want to be sure I’m there with a clear conscience.”
“I got a mortgage, a wife, and two kids that are dependent on me,” Officer Sampson (Moe Irvin) screams at him.
Much of “The Witness Room” is taken up with a technical discussion of the legal details of the case, and with the back-and-forth over the officers’ justifications for what they did in this case, and what they do for a living.
“Your job is to protect and serve. It’s the fucking oath you took,” Sampson says.
“To protect and serve everybody, asshole, everybody,” Eli replies.
There are scenes in which we are supposed to get to know the characters – their backstories, motivations, family pressures — but the characterizations flirt heavily with stereotype: T-J Moretti (Dave Baez) is an oversexed, foul-talking, crooked Italian-American cop. Terrence Sampson is an African-American who was dishonorably discharged from the Army and is now fighting off three civilian complaints of excessive force. Kevin Brennan (Jason SweetTooth Williams) is an Irish-American drunk. In case you don’t directly catch these characterizations – and the actors are good enough to add some unscripted contours to their roles – I’ve lifted these descriptions nearly verbatim from a monologue by DA Volpi, who is the most foul-mouthed of the lot, even as she lambasts the others for their “misogynistic bullshit.” She dismisses Eli as “Jesus Fucking Christ here sermonizing about morality” and asks to speak to “our savior” alone.
The scene between the two of them is the most dramatic, with a twist that I won’t spoil, except to say that it doubles down on how corrupt the system.
My account of “The Witness Room” may make it sound like a dry legal procedural, but in one respect it’s nowhere near dry enough. There are several moments that involve guns; every single one of them feels like an awkward effort to make the production more theatrical, and each one of them a mistake.
The Witness Room
AMT Theater through October 6
Running time: 80 minutes no intermission
Tickets: $29-$69
Written by Pedro Antonio Garcia
Directed by Will Blum
Set design by Daniel Allen, costume design by Gina Ruiz, lighting design by Aiden Bezark, sound design by Lindsay Jones
Cast: Dave Baez as TJ Moretti, Moe Irvin as Terrence Sampson, JD Mollison as Eli Torres, Tricia Small as Assistant DA Andrea Volpi, and Jason SweetTooth Williams as Kevin Brennan
Photographs by Andy Henderson
