Dramatizing the Plight of Homeless Women, in 'Ladies'

New York Times. April 7, 1989. By Mel Gussow.

In Eve Ensler's collage ''Ladies,'' nine homeless women drift and dream through nomadic lives. The play (at St. Clement's) has an evident authenticity, having been drawn from the author's experience working in New York City shelters. The scene is appropriately stark but the play is schematic, with monologues failing to merge into a moving dramatic portrait. Though the play lasts barely one hour, it seems longer, perhaps because of its lack of momentum.

Some of the moments touch responsive chords, as the women speak about their lives before and after they lost their homes. Novella Nelson, playing a woman who had three children by the time she was 17, explains the difference between those who are crazy and those who are insane. ''People get crazy,'' she says, ''to protect themselves from people who are insane.''

The craziness of the characters on stage is sometimes concealed. Isabell Monk, dressed in a neatly tailored suit, does not look like a shopping-bag lady. With an apparent rationality, she declares that she does not belong in such depressed surroundings. Eventually, she reveals a fearfulness bordering on hysteria.

Marcella Lowery talks about inspecting an apartment and finding that it is a sewer with walls: in other words, a home for the homeless. She and others in the shelter that is the setting for ''Ladies'' share a desperation and an incapacity to alter their lives. In most cases, they have suffered abuse at the hands of men, one of the more sustained aspects of the fragmented show.

The problem of the homeless is a difficult one to dramatize. To her credit, Ms. Ensler avoids sentimentality. At the same time, there is a self-limitation in her method. The play does not seem more than a reproduction of the reality as the author found it. The stories are not so different from ones that might be overheard in a bus terminal or on the street, and several of them are whimsical, like one woman's story about her love for Liberace.

''Ladies'' does benefit from an atmospheric production, under the direction of Paul Walker. The actresses seem sensitive to the material. In repose, they look like sculptural figures, waiting in limbo for a reclamation that will never arrive. Victoria Petrovich's set design and Debra Dumas's lighting are additional assets. The lighting shifts from dreamlike shadows to bright white as social workers offer offstage announcements about unnecessary (for these women) subjects like sex education. In the background, a combo plays midnight jazz by Joshua Schneider.

The characters in ''Ladies'' (co-produced by the Music-Theater Group and the Women's Project) are not only homeless, they are also rootless and rudderless, clinging to frayed mementoes and memories that signify their existence. The play remains in need of further definition. URBAN NOMADS - LADIES, by Eve Ensler; directed by Paul Walker; music by Joshua Shneider; set designed by Victoria Petrovich; lighting designed by Debra Dumas; costumes designed by Donna Zakowska; sound designed by John Kilgore; production manager, Steven Ehrenberg; stage manager, Michele Steckler. Presented by Music-Theater Group, Lyn Austin, producing director; Diane Wondisford and Mark Jones, associate producing directors, and the Women's Project and Productions Inc., Julia Miles, artistic director. At St. Clement's, 423 West 46th Street. Dot...Margaret Barker Prince...Denise Delapenha Alpha...Alexandra Gersten Nickie...Allison Janney Allegro...Marcella Lowery Mary...Isabell Monk Monetty...Novella Nelson Rosa...ChingValdes/Aran Ama...Beverly Wideman