Rachel Ravel and Livvy Marcus Photo by Nina Goodheart

It's been four years since I was introduced to the plays of this gifted scribe via her clever and ferocious macbitches, an exploration of how misogyny in college drama programs controls women by pitting them against each other instead of building a supportive community. And seriously, after that attention-grabbing premier production at The Chain, why hasn't a New York producer given us a high-profile mounting of this slyly funny drama with a jolting finish?

Since then, I've been fascinated by her cunnicularii, an absurdist commentary on the medical profession's blasé attitude towards understanding women's bodies, and intrigued by her Road Kills, a subtle, but sometimes jarring, character study of damaged souls.

After seeing her latest, benevolent, I will vehemently state that this and any future play by Sophie McIntosh constitutes must-see theatre. Like her previous two, the production is solidly directed by her co-founder of Good Apples Collective, Nina Goodheart.

Taking place in 1917, designer Junran "Charlotte" Shi's set depicts the laundry basement in the Inwood Benevolent Home, a fictional stand-in for the various charitable institutions in New York where women found guilty of "immoral acts" may be sent to learn a useful trade; in this case, hand-scrubbing clothing in harsh Borax. An upstage chute drops new piles of soiled clothing into the room, and the clean results outline the lip of IATI Theater's playing space.

"What do you think? Blood or shit?," asks the gregarious Sarah (Rachel Ravel), amusing herself with a guessing game as she scrutinizes the stain on a pair of bloomers. A Coney Island busker who was arrested when her street performance for tips was seen as panhandling, 19-year-old Sarah, decidedly keeps the mood light by cracking jokes and breaking into song.

This somewhat annoys the conservatively raised Abby (Livvy Marcus), a naïve 17-year-old whose wealthy father sent her to Benevolent as punishment for spending unchaperoned time with the Astor gentleman courting her. Being of privileged upbringing, Abby believes such workhouses serve a useful function, especially with the country having entered a world war. "These walls are the first line of defense! If all the girls here were let loose it'd risk the health of every soldier out on leave."

The play's other two characters were both arrested for prostitution. Twenty-four-year-old Margaret (Chani Reese) enjoys the luxuries of working in an upscale brothel while serving at Benevolent picks up some extra cash via their carriage boy.

Although Sarah, Abby and Margaret usually deal with their harsh situation with upbeat and lively chat, sound designer Max Van keeps us aware of the hardships just above with the screams of another inmate going through a painful birthing.

Twenty-six-year-old Emma (Mia Fowler) is the only Black character in the play, and her situation anchors the proceedings in a grimness that separates her from the others. "I don't work with Margaret. She's at a ten-dollar house. They take only the cream of the crop. Me, I'm not quite the 'cream' they're looking for."

Instead, Emma sees customers at a house where they pay fifty cents and she's given half. Though well-trained as a laundress, the racism of the industry keeps her from getting a legal job, so she's spent years without a home, with frequent arrests making Benevolent the only steady roof she can keep over her head.

Though the four characters all represent distinct situations that have landed them at Benevolent, McIntosh's exceptional writing, loaded with subtext about society's enforcement of traditional gender roles, keeps them from falling into archetypical cliches.

The play is highlighted by two scenes, one showing an act of romantic and sexual intimacy and the other demonstrating the limited choices for women seeking abortions. While fully seen by the audience, both are staged with theatrical modesty that removes nothing from their significant impact.

Although, there's certainly bit of symbolism to be interpreted by McIntosh's depiction of women scrubbing the stains out of proper society's dirty laundry as punishment for making victimless unconventional life choices (or, in Emma's case, dealing with the limited choices available to her), that's a topic I'll leave for each individual's post-theatre conversation.

You want to say that Broadway is unaffordable? Go ahead. But as long as Sophie McIntosh and Nina Goodheart are mounting their new, outstanding works in tiny Off-Off Broadway houses, don't you dare say that memorable, thought-provoking, original theatre in New York is unaffordable.