In The Sweepers, the audience is introduced to Bella, Dotty and Mary, all Italian-Americans living in Boston’s North End in 1945. The three have been friends since childhood and now in live in three adjoining houses that share a backyard area which seems to be presided over by a statue of the Virgin Mary to which all three turn during their times of crisis.

And there is crisis for the three. Mary’s husband and son are overseas in the Pacific. In addition to her prayers, Mary’s war efforts consist of collecting refuse for the war effort that borders on the compulsive. Dotty’s husband has returned from his tour of duty, but has been hospitalized for his continued belief that the war has followed him home and that Hitler is hiding under the bed. Bella, whose Irish husband ran off long ago and who lost a brother to the first world war, does not need to worry about her son, Sonny, being lost in battle. He was classified 4-F because of a heart murmur and stayed at home to earn his law degree.

Bella’s crisis comes from Sonny’s impending marriage to a young woman of second generation Italian descent who lives not in the neighborhood but on Boston’s South Side. Bella sees that Sonny is becoming, as one character puts it, "An American" and she realizes that she might lose him. As the wedding nears, Bella and her two friends continue to insist that Sonny uphold one long-standing tradition, the hanging of the bridal sheet the morning after the wedding. When Sonny and his now-wife, Karen, refuse, secrets which Bella, Dotty and Mary have long kept hidden come flying out.

Picardi has balanced his play with an eye for detail and nuance. He draws his audience into his characters’ lives carefully and when he exposes their self-torturing truths, it is hauntingly dramatic, never melodramatic.

The five-person ensemble brings the work to life with a realism that enhances the play’s deep emotional attributes. Valerie Hubbard, with a kewpie doll shaped face and a tight knot of curls sprouting from under the kerchief she wears on her head, throws off malapropisms ("fastests" for "Facists") without being condescending and seems genuinely afraid of her husband’s release from the hospital. With a truly Romanesque profile and vivid red hair, Dana Smith’s alcoholic Bella never falls into the stereotype of over-protective mother, but rather calls to mind the prototypical strong mother referred to in the play, Mildred Piece as played by Joan Crawford. Bella will do what she must to ensure that one man does not leave her. In a last minute substitution, Antoineete LaVecchia plays the strangely repressed Mary with heart and just a touch of anger. It’s a tribute to LaVecchia’s talent that, after only one day of rehearsal and three performances, the slight variations of Mary’s character shine through as well as they do.

Playing the younger generation are Matt Walton, whose rugged good looks do not detract from the character’s sensitive side and starry-eyed ideals about doing good for his community, and Domenica Cameron-Scorsese, whose petite stature belies the strength and fire that she calls up when she must stand up to Sonny’s mother and her two friends.

Roman J. Tatrowicz’s scenic and lighting design atmospherically takes the audience to a kind of backyard pressure cooker where the red walls of the houses that surround the action seem almost to glow with the traditions of the past and the bright age of atomic energy that is dawning at the play’s bittersweet end.

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The Sweepers plays through December 1st. Performances are Tuesday through Saturday evenings at 8pm, with Saturday and Sunday matinees at 3pm. Tickets are $35.00 and may be purchased by calling 212-206-1515, or online at www.urbanstages.org.