Third and Indiana - Characters

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 mother, Ofelia, is half-Dominican and half-Canadian. His father, Ruben, was Cuban and Italian. In the play Gabriel was portrayed by Gueshill Gilman Wharwood, an African-American actor, and a fourth year student (senior) at the Philadelphia High School for Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA).
  • Carl Sessions Stepp, the senior editor of the American Journalism Review, wrote in a 1994 review that "Gabriel is a compelling and heartbreaking character, a talented artist abandoned by his father and overwhelmed by circumstances, yet prodigiously mature in certain ways." 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 "hy would such a boy be willing to pocket the grocery money of teen-age mothers in exchange for crack?" Bob Nocek of The Times Leader said that Wharwood "handled dutifully" making Gabriel a sympathetic character.
• 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, as her father was Dominican and her mother was Canadian. In the play she was portrayed by Joilet Harris, an African-American actress.
  • Judith Wynne, a Somerville, Massachusetts writer who made a review of the book for The Baltimore Sun, said that the "depressed" Ofelia "is a handsome, urban earth mother who has psychic premonitions about Gabriel that she paints on her kitchen wall" and that "Lopez imbues her scenes with the melancholy, supernatural-tinged lyricism of a Toni Morrison novel."
• 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 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. At one point Eddie hears himself being compared to President of the United States Bill Clinton. The novel states that he "didn't necessarily take as a compliment, considering how gray and fat-faced the president was." Wynne said that the "manic" Eddie "seems to have dropped in from one of Elmore Leonard's low-life thrillers." O'Neill stated that Eddie becomes a "raging bull" at the end of the book. Paul L. Nolan played Eddie in the stage adaptation. Michael McCauley, the original actor for Eddie, dropped out of the production, and Nolan, originally cast as Lieutenant Bagno, replaced McCauley.
• 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?)" Scott Greer played Laetner in the stage adaptation. Posner said that he considered making the Laetner character African-American or Latino in order to "find an appropriate racial balance within the cast." Posner said that he opted to retain Laetner as a white character because "Laetner behaves quite naively, which began to seem less than credible for an African American or Latino. Not that there aren't plenty of naive African Americans and Latinos, but Laetner's naive in that particular well-meaning white liberal way. For example, I could see myself behaving as Laetner does."
• Diablo - Diablo, an ugly drug kingpin, keeps Gabriel and the other gang members of the "Black Caps" under his thumb. O'Neill described Diablo as a "cardboard character straight from a Steven Seagal movie." Elvis O. Nolasco played Diablo in the stage adaptation.
• Marisol - Gabriel's girlfriend, Marisol attends night school and works at a restaurant during the day. In the play, Michelle Seabreeze, a senior at CAPA at the time, played Marisol.
• Lalo Camacho - Lalo, one of Gabriel's close friends, is in the Black Caps. Diablo fatally beats him. In the play, Ito Robles played Lalo.
• Ralph - Ralph, one of Gabriel's close friends, is in the Black Caps. Diablo asks him to kill Gabriel, and Ralph confronts Gabriel before committing suicide. On the stage Ralph was played by Ramon Aponte, a CAPA senior at the time.
• Mike Inverso - Inverso is the shady friend of Eddie who constantly insults Eddie. He created the plan of stealing the mayor's ring in order to pay off Thin Jimmy and Diablo. John Lumia played Mike in the stage version. Daisy Fried of Philadelphia City Paper described Inverso as "bad-egg".
• Bill Bagno - Bagno is a police officer and a Vietnam War veteran. H. Michael Walls played Bagno in the stage version. Originally Paul Nolan was cast as Bagno, but he was recast as Eddie.
• Anthony Faggioli - The owner of the Faggioli Funeral Home, he helps Gabriel and Eddie steal the mayor's ring.
• Mayor DeMarco - The corrupt mayor who dies in the course of the novel. O'Neill compares DeMarco to Frank Rizzo.
• Sarah Lerner - Sarah is Eddie's girlfriend. She leaves him as the story progresses. 43-year old Sarah is 5 feet 11 inches (1.80 m) tall, has red hair and green eyes, and does not decorate her nails. Eddie liked the fact that she was Jewish as she was 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 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 "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 "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."