Bobbie and Jerome

Two tortured artists—via bullet wounds and a goading hunger for crack and reefer—chase a single chance for redemption in this premiere by Daniel Owens. He spins a poignant tale of two Harlem stonemason cousins, haunted by demons, who find salvation and ruin in the stone they sculpt into jazz saints and black virgins. With an epic quality not unlike that of Ken Follett’s novel The Pillars of the Earth, these two recovering drug addicts, under the curmudgeonly tutelage of a boozy Brit (Ron Davids), labor to create one of “God’s Castles” by the streets they once hustled on. Owens has deftly worked theological metaphors into Bobbie (G. To’mas Jones) and Jerome’s (Marcel Davis) doomed struggle, portraying the two as the warring but inextricably bound aspects of the chiaroscuro effects they will into being with hammer and chisel. Director Jacqueline Moscou coaxes a passionate credibility from the narration with contrasting moments of levity and raw emotion. JENNA NAND 7:30 p.m. Thurs.-Sun., 2 p.m. Sat.-Sun. Ends Oct. 26.
Tue., Oct. 7, 7:30 p.m.; Wed., Oct. 8, 7:30 p.m.; Thursdays-Sundays, 7:30 p.m.; Saturdays, Sundays, 2 p.m. Starts: Oct. 7. Continues through Oct. 26, 2008