Playwright Bruce Norris doesn’t shrink from the hard stuff. In Downstate, his 2018 drama now playing at Studio Theatre, he tackles one of society’s most egregious crimes. Rather than focusing his high beam solely on those we typically identify as victims, however, he invites us into the lives of perpetrators. The result is a theater piece that is as brilliant as it is disturbing, as itchy and edgy as it is achingly humane. At a halfway house in downstate Illinois, four convicted sex offenders dwell in near-obscurity. They’ve all done prison time, but some remain locked in ankle monitors, and all are constrained by unseen barriers. On her weekly visit, their overworked probation officer, Ivy (Kelli Blackwell), informs them that the city has expanded the distance they must keep from a local school, leaving the men cut off from a local bus line and a nearby grocery store. The world they’re permitted to navigate has notched down once again. Stephen Conrad Moore (Dee), Richard Ruiz Henry (Felix), Kelli Blackwell (Ivy), Jaysen Wright (Gio), and Dan Daily (Fred) in ‘Downstate.’ Photo by DJ Corey. Banned from the internet, smartphones, cars, and cable TV, their lives are pale shadows of the sensory-rich world that most of us take for granted. Yet each is a full human being with a unique history and passions. They also vary in their self-evaluations of their crimes. The elderly Fred (Dan Daily), a benign former piano teacher who genuinely regrets having abused his students, was crippled by a prison mate sporting steel-toed boots. The glad-handing Gio (Jaysen Wright) discounts his trespasses as strictly statutory and projects a cockeyed optimism about his imagined future in business. Dee (Stephen Conrad Moore), a one-time performer in traveling Broadway musicals, brags that his underage male partner sent him love letters for six years into his incarceration. He busies himself taking care of Fred and managing the meager household. Felix (Richard Ruiz Henry), who is outed by Ivy for having tried to contact the daughter he raped, suffers profoundly, and mostly in tortured silence. The action turns on a visit from Andy (Tim Getman), one of Fred’s former piano students, and Andy’s wife, Em (Emily Kester). Now a financial services executive in Chicago, the well-off Andy has been encouraged by his survivors’ group to confront Fred directly. Bumbling his way through a prepared statement, Andy hardly evokes much sympathy. When Andy returns in the second act to retrieve his “forgotten” phone, the confrontation turns more vitriolic, and consequential. Norris’ precise, clever dialogue builds nuanced characters right before our eyes. If we don’t exactly empathize with the offenders’ sense of victimhood, we at least glimpse their own tragedies, real and imagined. Only the hapless Andy lacks the dimensionality that Norris invests in the others, until even he erupts. One could look at his character as an over-indulged millennial hell-bent on revenge or as a man whose life has truly been impeded by the abuse he endured. In any case, he ends up as the least attractive character in the play and the one who, by contrast, forces us to see the offenders in a more sympathetic light. TOP LEFT: Emily Kester (Em) and Tim Getman (Andy); TOP RIGHT: Irene Hamilton (Effie) and Tim Getman; ABOVE: Dan Daily (Fred) and Tim Getman, in ‘Downstate.’ Photos by DJ Corey. Norris punctuates the play with punchy interactions and one-liners, exactly what any of us might do to prick ballooning household tensions. The playwright is also unafraid of silence. Evocative small moments of pause, beautifully complemented by Stacey Derosier’s lighting, allow engrossed audience members the time to grasp their own evolving reactions. Set designer Alexander Woodward provides a homely but tidy living room decorated with well-worn second-hand furniture, likely donated by community members. It’s a communal space but it also sports personal touches such as Fred’s electronic piano and Gio’s gym apparatus. We see the roof line above, giving us the impression of peering into the exposed side of a doll house. As Ivy says, the men are lucky to have a roof over their heads. But community support only goes so far. Cardboard covers a shot-out front window that no one is inclined to repair. A baseball bat sits inside the front door — the men’s only defense from possible intruders. Director David Muse inspires superb performances from the ensemble. Of the four reprobates, the sardonic Dee has the most trenchant lines, but all are terrific in their roles, as are the women, including Irene Hamilton as Gio’s ditsy friend Effie. They draw us powerfully into their orbit with a rare kind of immediacy and even charm. When should punishment end and a period of grace begin? Norris leaves us with no easy answers. At minimum, even as we decry their crimes, we can no longer paint the abusers with a broad, dismissive brush. These are individuals who’ve paid their dues and live in plain sight yet continue to dwell in purgatory. Running Time: Two hours and 30 minutes with a 15-minute intermission. Downstate plays through February 16, 2025, in the Victor Shargai Theatre at Studio Theatre, 1501 14th St. NW, Washington, DC. Purchase tickets ($50–$102, with low-cost options and discounts available) online or by calling the box office at (202) 332-3300. The program for Downstate is online here. COVID Safety: Masks are recommended but not required. Studio Theatre’s complete Health and Safety protocols are here.