In her play The Given, Francine Volpe grapples with a familiar creative quandary: Which is more difficult to choose as a protagonist, victim or victimizer? Sure, few cheer for the bastard who steamrolls over all others in his path to greatness, but it's just as difficult to empathize with an apparently weak character beaten down for lack of a backbone. Volpe centers the action on Cathea (Laura Heisler), a bright young woman working as a stripper to support her wheelchair-bound grandmother, Nettie (Elzbieta Czyzewska), as well as her deadbeat friend Leon (Anthony De Sando), who wants to be infected with HIV (an ultimate victim). The play begins with Cathea meeting a strong-willed stripper named Suzie (a wickedly funny Sharon Angela), who reveals that her uncle molested her as a child. Cathea sympathizes, but Suzie refuses to be made a victim. Later, when Cathea meets Seth (Remy Auberjonois), a client looking for conversation rather than a lap dance, she almost blossoms: She???s finally encountered someone who doesn't want anything from her. Of course, poor, goodhearted Cathea is not really on equal footing with Seth, and he soon needs, desires, and manipulates just as much as everyone else. Her neighbor Swanee (Jason C. Brown), who happens to be HIV-positive, is the one person in Cathea???s life who doesn't manipulate or use her in some way, but she continually rejects his offer of support and love. The action oscillates between a strip joint and Cathea's apartment as we follow her through her stages of self-discovery. The set (designed by Victoria Imperioli), though inventive, requires continual changes and drags down the pace of the production, but directors Michael Imperioli and Zetna Fuentes keep the actors racing at a heady clip???particularly relying on De Sando and Brown to do their gay thing and provide further comic outlets???so things don't sag and become a real downer. Heisler manages to imbue Cathea with a durable sweetness, so that by the final scenes we are led to believe she's decided to leave the supposed shelter of victimhood to embrace some fresh state of awareness. But by this time it's quite obvious that being a victim is her ultimate form of power.