"The poor ye shall always have with you," Jesus is said to have said, because even he was resigned to the fact that the "haves" will always have to put up with the underperforming loans they make to the have-nots. Now as never before in America, the rich are enriching more, and the poor are working harder for dollars that mean ever less.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 37,000,000 Americans are poor - if the poverty line is fantasized to be merely $20,000 annually for a family of four.

Even a single person in Kansas City, the nation's breadbasket, would be hard-pressed to get by on that little (approximately $10 an hour, full-time), which, incidentally, would still be too high for such a student to qualify for a Pell grant at MCC - PV.

So, what if an educated, well-to-do magazine writer from New York were to try to survive in America on such an income - the way so many Americans must - as a member of the "working poor"? Not surprisingly, she'd find it brutal and impossible. She'd write articles and a book about it, and these would inspire a play.

Nickel and Dimed, by Joan Holden, is based on the true experiences of Barbara Ehrenreich, a writer for Harper's Magazine, who decided to leave her comfortable New York life behind and try to find work as a 55-year old woman on her own in down-to-earth states like Minnesota and Maine.

The play is really a series of episodes from the jobs she found, as waitress, maid, dietary aide in a nursing home, and "Mall Mart" minion. A sign high over the stage indicates her current employer and pay rate - never over $8 an hour - for each episode, and Barbara narrates between job changes, tying the scenes together.

All characters are portrayed by the same acting ensemble of four women and one man, who manage deftly to re-populate a different workplace each time the stage rotates and Barbara completes her segue soliloquies. The new cast is always believable, even if accents are sketchy at times. Props are minimal and the sets are spare, but the stage action is lively and the script is frequently funny.

Unfortunately, the writer chose a predominantly expository style, so Barbara spends more time speaking to the audience than actually interacting with other characters.

At one point, when Barbara concludes that housecleaners ought to be paid far more than they are, all the cast breaks character and the lights go up for an interactive discussion with the audience. How much of what the "true" characters say is scripted, if any, is hard to tell.

One young actress-sans-persona says she owns her home and her busy life requires her to have cleaning help, but that she pays fairly. Another takes issue with what fair pay should be. The audience is consulted, and eventually there is some consensus that $25 an hour is appropriate.

If that gets you thinking about dropping out of your degree program and living the high life as a well-paid maid, don't forget about the middleman - unless you already have lots of wealthy friends with dirty homes who'll pay you direct. Otherwise, the service that pimps you out certainly will charge clients $25 or more an hour for your services, but apparently you'll only receive about a third of that, along with your share of knee and hip problems.

At least the Unicorn isn't hypocritical when it comes to helping out one large category of working poor, us students. Normal admission prices are $20 per show during the week, and $28 on weekends. But if you have a valid student ID and nerves of oak, you can wait till five minutes before the performance, and slip in for just $7 on a "rush" ticket.

Rush! The last perfomance is Sunday afternoon, April 1. For more info, see http://www.unicorntheatre.org/

Copyright 2007 Metropolitan Community College