Steppenwolf's 'Hot L' a poignant view from the fringe

Lanford Wilson, a most musical writer, never composed a note. But when the 73-year-old playwright died last month from complications of pneumonia, he left behind a canon of concertos, fugues and, in “Talley's Folly,” a Pulitzer Prize-winning duet.

On the day he died, Steppenwolf Theatre, whose 1980 production of Wilson's gritty street symphony “Balm in Gilead” introduced the company to New York and the nation, began previews of its revival of Wilson's 1973 drama, “The Hot L Baltimore.”

I cannot imagine a more fitting encomium than Tina Landau's thoughtful, artfully imagined staging of “The Hot L Baltimore.” It's a moving snapshot of the defiant, despairing, determined, down-and-out denizens of a once grand hotel turned flophouse whose sanctuary is threatened by the wrecking ball.

Landau expands upon Wilson's trademark lyricism with her astute pairing of music and dialogue. A snippet of Sly and the Family Stone's “Everyday People” serves as prelude to the arrival of the hustlers and hookers, the addicts and the elders who call the Baltimore home. Roberta Flack's “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” underscores the musings of Mrs. Bellotti (Jacqueline Williams, in a moving cameo) who begs the manager to allow her mentally ill son to stay on so she can care for her dying husband at home. Then there's Hoagy Carmichael's “Stardust,” a recollection of better days hauntingly performed by Molly Regan's elderly Millie, the well-loved outsider, and The Man (the intriguing Sean Alan Krill), an otherworldly character representing the nameless transients who once inhabited the now-vacant rooms in James Schuette's magnificent, meticulously detailed set.

Plot doesn't figure prominently in “Hot L Baltimore,” whose title comes from the burned out “e” in the hotel marquee. While punctuated by arguments, accusations and reconciliations, the play unfolds primarily as a study of the characters of this cobbled-together community. There's Bill (Jon Michael Hill), the night desk clerk with a soft spot for The Girl, a garrulous, 19-year-old speed-freak, played by the terrific Allison Torem.

Also calling the hotel home are April (the commanding de'Adre Aziza), a sassy hooker of boundless compassion, and her younger counterpart Suzy, played with a sweet vulnerability by Kate Arrington.

Yasen Peyankov plays Mr. Morse, a cranky old man with a profound need to be acknowledged. He scuffles with the increasingly desperate Jackie (Alana Arenas delivering yet another knockout turn), who dreams of owning an organic farm with her developmentally disabled younger brother, Jamie (a perfectly pitched Namir Smallwood). Samuel Taylor plays Paul, who arrives searching for his missing grandfather, whom nobody can recall.

The cast is superb. Their performances, though brief, are richly detailed. Shunning sentiment and self-pity, they reveal the humanity of the marginalized folks whom Wilson knew so well.

But in the end, what makes Steppenwolf's “The Hot L Baltimore” a must see are its exquisite moments — a hand extended in comfort, forgiveness offered unconditionally and the almost imperceptive acts of kindness that connect us, one to another, in the dark before the dawn.