Third and Indiana

Steve Lopez arrived in Philadelphia in the mid-1980s. Lopez said that he began considering writing a novel because "what I saw in the neighborhood that I found so shocking and so unlike what I had seen in my years of reporting in other cities. There were just so many compelling images that I would walk away with every time I went into the neighborhood." Lopez said that his book mainly focused on "adult relationships". ==Characters==

• Gabriel Santoro - Gabriel, the protagonist, is a 14-year old boy who runs away from home and deals drugs on the street. Ultimately Gabriel is good at heart, and hopes to pull away from a life of drugs and violence. In the novel Gabriel is half-Latino, half-European White. His father, Ruben, was Cuban and Italian. In the play Gabriel was portrayed by Gueshill Gilman Wharwood, Brian O'Neill of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette stated that he as a reviewer cared about Gabriel, the character. Ben Yagoda of The New York Times said that Gabriel "is depicted as honorable, steadfast and true -- and a prodigiously talented artist to boot." Yagoda asked "[w]hy would such a boy be willing to pocket the grocery money of teen-age mothers in exchange for crack?" • Ofelia Santoro - Ofelia, Gabriel's mother, frantically looks for Gabriel. She is 40 years old. In the novel Ofelia is half-Latina, half-European White, • Eddie "Joe Pass" Passarelli - A South Philadelphia Italian American, 38-year-old Eddie loses his girlfriend, leaves a crumbling marriage, and finds that he has to pay a mobster named Thin Jimmy $10,000 U.S. dollars ($ according to inflation) since the truck, driven by Eddie, had a fire and burnt. Eddie is nicknamed "Joe Pass" as a reference to the musician Joe Pass. He suddenly moves out of his Roxborough house and moves into his mother's rental apartment in Kensington. Eddie becomes a father figure to Gabriel. Michael McCauley, the original actor for Eddie, dropped out of the production, and Nolan, originally cast as Lieutenant Bagno, replaced McCauley. Bob Nocek, in The Times Leader, stated that "The foolishness of Passarelli’s troubles [...] are a welcome break from" Gabriel's plot points. • Father Laetner - A Roman Catholic priest from Pittsburg, California, Laetner is shocked by the neighborhood and helps Ofelia in her quest to find her son. O'Neill states that Laetner is "two dimensional" and that Lopez made Laetner "incongruously agnostic" since Laetner "acts heroically." O'Neill added that Laetner did not seem to have awareness of "Christ's predilection for the poor, the basis for the liberation theology movement within the Catholic Church." O'Neill said "There are Hallmark cards that go deeper than this guy. (Has any American novelist since Willa Cather given us a believable priest?)" - Sarah is Eddie's girlfriend. She leaves him as the story progresses. Forty-three-year-old Sarah is tall, has red hair and green eyes, and does not decorate her nails. Eddie likes the fact that she is Jewish as she is distanced from his community. A substitute teacher at Temple University, Sarah lives in an Old City apartment before moving into Eddie's apartment. • Stella - Stella is Ofelia's coworker and friend. Jean Korey played Stella in the play version. • Marie - Marie is Eddie's wife. She does not get along with him and feels betrayed when he leaves her. Jean Korey played Marie in the play version. • Crew Chief - The chief of the Black Caps crew that Gabriel works for. In the play he is given a name, Gizmo, and was played by Kareem Diallo Carpenter. Daisy Fried of the Philadelphia City Paper said that the play Gizmo has "an important, comic-sinister relationship" with Gabriel. O'Neill said that the central characters "redeemed" the novel despite that it had had some cliche minor characters. Stepp said that "Lopez specializes in paradox. His kids embody both ruthless bravado and baby-faced terror; the adults, both faith and despair. Villains are both monstrous and pathetic, wise-cracking street rogues and remorseless perverts." Yagoda argued that "[o]ne never shakes the feeling that" the "hard to credit" characters "are stand-ins for the author, notebook-wielding observers of a poor, crime-riddled neighborhood rather than real participants in its daily life" with Gabriel being the "worst" example. Toby Zinman of Philadelphia City Paper said that in the play version "the caricatures rather than characters pander to every prejudice in the audience; the Italians are ridiculous cartoons, the African Americans are either vicious or victims, and every crucial scene of emotional or moral crisis is broken by a laugh line, effectively trivializing the characters and their ordeals." ==Play adaptation==

The play adaptation of Third and Indiana was produced by the Arden Theatre Company in Philadelphia. The play ran from March 20 to May 4, 1997, The writer of the play, Aaron Posner, A teenager, Bernard Gray, assisted Posner with the street slang. The play had 12 actors, original music, panel discussions of the issues discussed by the play and original novel, and video footage. Posner characterized the production as expensive and large. Posner said "It's been a huge project that's really consumed me. While it's Steve's situations, Steve's characters, and it's wholly recognizable as Third and Indiana, the writing in the play is very much more original and different from the novel. It's much more like writing a new play than an adaptation." Steve Lopez said "I think something the play does that the book didn't do was to focus on kids" and that "Aaron has taken it down to a kid's perspective. As a result, there is more street language and street action, and I think that's probably a good thing." Posner said that he decided to write the play after he heard a radio interview with Lopez and the responses; Posner recalled that "[o]ne caller would say it was brilliant, and another would say he [Lopez] didn't understand anything at all." After having read the novel, he decided that it would become his next project. Posner traveled to North Philadelphia to talk to community leaders and residents on several occasions while he was writing the play. In 1997 he said "I don't pretend to be anything but a total outsider in that neighborhood. I'm a somewhat more comfortable and somewhat more informed outsider now." Steve Lopez had no part in the play's production. According to Posner, he and Lopez met on several occasions while Posner was adapting the play. Posner offered for Lopez to be a consultant, but Lopez said that he had too many commitments at the time. Posner said that Lopez had a "supportive attitude" and told him "I wrote the novel; you write the play." Lopez said that Posner told him that the play would probably have a different focus on the novel. Posner did not restrict casting of Gabriel and Ofelia Santoro according to their races in the novel. He said "I concluded the story was universal enough that it wasn't hooked into the Latino experience. I looked for the best combination of actors I could find to play the kid and the mother." Ultimately two African-Americans were cast as those two characters. ==Plans for a film version==

On one occasion staff members of Oprah Winfrey and Quincy Jones allied to option Third and Indiana for a film version; Oprah's group wanted a "happy ending." Oprah's option evaporated. Jones's found another group of investors who said they raised money for a film version and never executed any plans. In 2003 Tom Bradford, a then-35-year-old Center City resident, said that he would begin plans to make a film version of Third and Indiana. ==Reception==

Judith Wynne said that Third and Indiana had often been compared to Clockers. In a 1994 review Ben Yagoda of The New York Times said that "the novel is by no means a failure" but that it "flirts too recklessly with the outlandish and the hackneyed to be counted a success." The Fort Worth Star Telegram placed the book in "Best Books of 1994" list. Brian O'Neill of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said that Third and Indiana is "worth reading." Wynne argues that the novel is "an angry, memorable testimony to 'young voices silenced, human futures wasted.'" Wynne said that Lopez "keeps most of the action rumbling efficiently along to its explosive conclusion" but that the subplot involving Ofelia and the priest was "half-hearted" and "lows down the pace without adding much to the story." O'Neill said that the novel had some "compelling" if "fantastic" plot twists, and while it does not have a "Hollywood" ending to "[Lopez's] credit" but that the novel also "sort of fades away." Stepp said that, through Gabriel, Eddie, and Diablo, Lopez "manages to juxtapose a thickly meditative study of evil with improbable subplots worthy of Elmore Leonard." From residents of the Badlands Steve Lopez said that the response from the residents of the Badlands was mostly positive. Lopez said that some from the area criticized him for writing the novel because he did not live there. Lopez argued that "I knew more about the neighborhood than most people who don't live there, and I wrote the book for those people. I decided if I tried to write this book from the inside out . . . I would be a fraud. What I did in the book was to bring outsiders into the neighborhood to view it with a fresh eye." The play version Bob Nocek of Times Leader said, regarding the play version, "What makes "Third and Indiana" work is that it's not afraid to show us that sometimes hope isn't enough." Toby Zinman of the City Paper liked the book version; in regards of the play version, which she reviewed, she said she felt like she "watched an afterschool special with bad language." ==See also==