“Park Your Car” Full Of Twists, Turns

Who wouldn’t fantasize about exacting revenge on a high school teacher for a bad grade?

That’s the premise behind “Park Your Car in Harvard Yard,” Israel Horovitz’s moving and funny story of redemption, directed by Hope Alexander for International City Theatre at the Center Theatre.

There’s a lot to enjoy in this production. Set in a retired schoolteacher’s living room in Gloucester, Mass., the story zigs and zags with twists and turns. The ending will surprise you. Both actors turn in great performances (angst, despair, hopelessness); both nail that Boston accent.

Both genuinely despise each other, at least until the end.

Alexander’s direction is subtle. An answer to a help wanted ad sets up a dynamic situation. The recently-widowed Kathleen Hogan (Jacqueline Schultz) becomes the housekeeper for Jacob Brackish (Joseph Ruskin), a retired teacher from Gloucester High. She’s a local woman who still holds a grudge for the bad grades she, her parents, and her husband received from her new boss.

Then a revelation moments before the break and another one near the end turn this cozy production upside down and re-textures the relationship between the two otherwise antagonistic characters.

We learn that the two do share something. To divulge what they share would spoil an extraordinary ending (go see it for yourselves). Suffice it to say that it caps an already captivating story.

Hogan is clumsy and clearly not suited for this sort of work. We watch with glee how she takes advantage of his alleged deafness and mocks him with his choice of radio station. We wonder if she has other, more sinister (read revenge) plans.

Nice choice of name, Brackish, as in brackish water that’s pooled too long. He is surly and unpleasant, a not-nice guy. He wears a hearing aid; he doesn’t need it, he just wants the sympathy.

At first we wonder what his agenda could be. He never marries. He knows he’s about to die. We sense that he awaits death so he can join his contemporaries whose obituaries he reads each day in the paper.

Schultz’s Hogan is loud and feisty, with a chip on her shoulder. She believes her happiness hinged on getting good grades from Brackish. He is mean-spirited, set in his ways, omnipotent in his fashion, (big fish, little pond) but ultimately jealous and embittered by the success of a friend/colleague/rival.

The point where Kathleen’s and Jacob’s back-stories intersect as well as when he gives her another chance to pass her music appreciation exam is where both transform: they acquire self respect and respect for each other.

It’s a story with a moral. It starts predictably and then veers off into uncharted territory when coincidence alters the course of events. Ultimately it’s an uplifting story, where perceived slights can be righted, where misunderstandings, however long they fester, can be rectified.

Performances are at 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, with 2 p.m. matinees Sunday. The show runs until May 25. Tickets are $32-$42. The Center Theater is at 300 E. Ocean Blvd.

For more information, call 436-4610 or visit www.ictlongbeach.org.