F. Scott Fitzgerald’s observation that there are no second acts in American life has been refuted by innumerable comebacks of business titans, celebrities, politicians, and sports figures. Now, thanks to playwright Eduardo Ivan Lopez, Guinevere Garcia, who is none of those, is enjoying a third act through the world premiere of his off-Broadway play “Natural Life,” at the T. Schreiber Theatre through April 2.Garcia’s first act was the misfortune of having been born Guinevere Swan into a poor and horrific Illinois family. By age 5 she was serially abused by an uncle; at 14 she was a street prostitute; and at age 21, she walked into a police station to confess that she had murdered her child, Sarah, and began serving a 10-year jail sentence. Garcia’s second act began in 1994 when she was convicted of murdering her violently abusive husband, George Garcia, who unfortunately happened to be the brother of the chief of police of Cicero, Illinois. After a botched defense by a court-appointed neophyte lawyer, she was sentenced to death by lethal injection. Thus began a death penalty case that drew the attention of Bianca Jagger and Amnesty International, who petitioned for a commutation of the sentence from then Illinois governor Jim Edgar. The only problem? Garcia wanted nothing to do with their help. She wanted the state to put her to death and conveyed that through a close relationship with Carol Marin, a reporter and anchor for a local Chicago news station.Garcia’s third act, as the thinly-veiled protagonist of “Natural Life,” was seeded when Lopez became aware of the story in 1999 at an event in Pittsburgh at which Marin was honored with the Marie Torre Award. The award is named for the heroic newscaster and mother of Roma Torre, the present NY1 anchor and Lopez’s spouse. “I was fascinated by the story and I asked Carol Marin to put me in touch with Guin,” recalled Lopez, an ex-Marine and author of several successful plays including “Lady With a View,” “Spanish Eyes,” and “Fireflies.” After an initial four-hour meeting, the playwright won over a skeptical Garcia, who agreed to cooperate on only one condition: The collaboration had to be kept secret as it was against prison rules.From his correspondence with Garcia, which continues to this day, Lopez has created a fascinating portrait of two women in “Natural Life”: One, now named Claire, is a battered woman who has consistently drawn an unlucky hand; the other, Rita, is a well-heeled and professional news reporter inexorably drawn into the life of her subject. While in real-life Marin remained objective as she reported on the story, Rita becomes an advocate for Claire, one of the few liberties taken by Lopez in what is essentially a docudrama.“I told Guin that I wasn’t out to champion her cause,” said Lopez. “But I soon realized that she was bright, and smart, and a good person who’d had some tough breaks. People do horrendous things but she was still a human being and I wanted to tell that other side of her.” That humanity and empathy comes through in a first-rate production, directed by Jake Hunter and starring Holly Heiser as Claire and Anna Holbrook as Rita. Most absorbing is how Lopez manages to interweave three different strands: Claire’s harrowing back story; the satiric machinations of a newsroom fighting for ratings; and a political hot potato that has a governor worried about his re-election as he weighs a tough-on-crime reputation versus being responsible for the first state execution of a woman in 50 years.“Edgar did commute Garcia’s sentence to life imprisonment,” said Lopez. “And lost his re-election.”As in the play, Garcia became despondent after the commutation and shortly thereafter tried to take her life by slitting her wrists with a broken light bulb. However, as she lay bleeding in her cell, she called for help. “She had become religious and was convinced that she was committing an act against God,” said Lopez. “It was O.K. to be executed by the state but not to take your own life.”Now 57, Garcia is a model prisoner, said Lopez, who has studied law and has helped her fellow inmates. She is currently sentenced to remain incarcerated to the end of her natural life. The playwright said that if Garcia could petition for anything, it would be to be given a term sentence, whether it be five years or 50 years.“Whether it’s out of reach or not, it gives her a simple hope,” said Lopez. “That’s all she wants now. Hope.”
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