Achieving recognition JC playwright’s new production focuses on fictional assault victim

The unconscionable depths to which a human being can sink have always captured our collective attention.

Transfixed by media images of violence and injustice that bombard us daily, we commonly hover at water coolers with coworkers, milling over the details of depravity most recently in the headlines.

As a former reporter and columnist for the Jersey Journal, Journal Square resident and playwright John Petrick, 40, was often confronted with those stark realities of human nature. Through an insider’s look at tales both bone-chilling and heart-wrenching, Petrick was made acutely aware of what happens when law and morality go awry – and how people actively respond to it.

His work as a playwright, he says, inevitably reflects that.

In "Beyond Recognition," his new play opening this week at New York’s Abingdon Theatre Arts Complex, Petrick directly takes aim at the notion of truth and how we often mistakenly perceive it. Using a near-fatal beating in Central Park and its ensuing media frenzy as the crux of the play’s conflict, Petrick examines the range of human nature and the fact that the truth is not always exactly as it seems.

Battling perceptions

In his work as a reporter, Petrick said he was forced early on to take a more critical look at the way we, as a society, perceive the dark side of humanity.

"When I see people judged, disgraced or dismissed, I try to put myself in their shoes," Petrick said last week. "I try to remember all the good before passing judgment. [This play] is about how it’s a very judgmental world where people don’t look at their own [excrement]. It’s to tell people, ‘Take stock of yourself and don’t be so judgmental.’ "

"Beyond Recognition" looks at the experience of Kevin, a man who works to recover in the aftermath of an attack by an unknown assailant in Central Park. After being beaten so badly and disfigured so as to be unrecognizable, Kevin’s case becomes a New York cause célèbre, with many city residents rallying behind the victim and demanding justice for the brutal beating.

With help from his boyfriend, Kevin works to regain his memory, leading to unexpected results that "blur the lines of guilt and innocence and redraw the faces of victim and violator."

This challenging of perceptions, Petrick said, is a strong undercurrent in his work as a playwright.

"I think that all of my stuff, when I look back on it, is unified by one common thread," he said. "What happens when you truly show all of yourself to someone? What are the risks of that and what will people do in response to it? At the heart of it, that’s what this is about. About the images people project of themselves and what the reality of it is."

Added Petrick, "In the play, a random act of violence is perceived, but there’s more to the victim [than just being a victim]."

News vs. theatre

One of the facets of human behavior Petrick has noted throughout his two careers is that audiences are more accepting of human imperfections in reality than they are in fiction. In-depth tales of sex, crime, betrayal and death are helpful selling points for newspapers and other media outlets, but theatre audiences aren’t as amenable to seeing those tales acted out before them on stage.

"People don’t like watching other people behaving badly [in plays]," Petrick said. "But I think there’s nothing more universal than showing just what people are capable of doing. And it never ceases to amaze me that people now, after so many of these things have been exposed in the media, can be just as hard on people when they find these things out."

In his work as a playwright, Petrick plays with long-standing formulas and tries to subvert what audiences are used to expecting.

"When you write a play, they teach you that every character has to change at the end," Petrick said. "My characters do change, but not the way the audience wants or expects them to."

Petricks’s primary inspiration, he said jokingly, is what he calls his dim view of life. His characters are most often seen at their worst, saying and doing things that most people might find reprehensible.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. "Amidst all the heavy serious stuff, I try to be witty," he added. He does this, he says, by arming his characters with blunt and incisive dialogue.

Three others produced

Petrick, a third generation Jersey City resident who attended St. Peter’s Preparatory School in Paulus Hook, has already had three plays produced at professional, non-profit theaters in New York. "Beyond Recognition," which is his second collaboration with director Kate Bushmann, is his second production for the Abingdon Theatre Company.

Petrick’s first play, written in 1990 and entitled "The Roadblock," was produced in 1992 at the H.B. Playwrights’ Foundation. After further study at New York’s H.B. Studio and the Playwrights’ Horizons Theatre School, Petrick was invited to join the Circle Repertory Theatre Playwrights Project, a prestigious roundtable of emergent new American playwrights.

His second play, "The Appearance of Impropriety," was both workshopped and produced at the Abingdon Theatre Company in 1999. His third, "Second Coming," was produced by the Native Coast Theatre Company in 2000.

Now working for the features section of the Record of Hackensack, Petrick says his experience in putting the show together already has him thinking about writing a new play.

"Being around all these creative people is getting my engines revved," Petrick said. "Being around all these people is percolating my imagination."

And while the creative juices are flowing, the sheer amount of time and energy he and his cast and crew have put into the production has drained him a bit.

"I feel tired," Petrick said. "I’m already unable to enjoy the moment as I am. Now I’m just anxious instead of terrified."

"Beyond Recognition" opened on Friday and will run six weeks until Nov. 23. The theater is located at 312 West 36th St., between Eighth and Ninth Avenues. Ticket prices vary. Call (212) 868-444 or go to www.smarttix.com for more information on purchasing tickets.

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