An accomplished playwright with something to say and an unconventional but effective way of saying it. A director with an inventive method of following the path of the author’s characters. A scenic designer who latches onto a concept that perfectly and precisely enhances the text. And three malleable actors who make it all feel effortless. Mix ’em together, add a passel of dancing cucarachas (see below), what do you get? Paula Vogel’s Mother Play, the new Second Stage offering at the Helen Hayes.
A cheerily nostalgic mother’s day celebration this isn’t. A hint about the tone of the evening is on the cover of the playbill: the full title is Mother Play: A Play in Five Evictions.
Vogel, the author of How I Learned to Drive, Indecent, and other substantial dramas, is so self-assured here that she has Martha (Celia Keenan-Bolger)—the daughter of the mother in question, and the narrator of the occasion—tell us up front what is likely to happen. “By age 11, I had already moved seven times…. When I packed up my brother Carl’s apartment after he died, everything he loved fit into one medium size U-Haul box.” Anyone who lived through the 1980s—at least, in major population centers like New York, San Francisco, or in this case, Washington, D.C.—knows precisely what that means.
[Read Frank Scheck’s ★★★☆☆ review here.]
The action begins in 1962 when Martha is 11 and her brother Carl (Jim Parsons) is 13, and progresses “by evictions” to the present. Phyllis (Jessica Lange), whose marriage has apparently just ended, moves her children from apartment to apartment. Or more precisely, the children do the moving while Phyllis sits drinking martinis or just gin-from-the-bottle. Martha is plain and sensible while Carl strives to protect both his sister and mother, the latter of whom seems oblivious to everything except those cockroaches. Which start as mere pests but at one point thoroughly overwhelm the stage in a Dali-esque nightmare of a tap-dancing chorus line. (The projection designer, Shawn Duan, is likely responsible for this sequence.) Outrageous, but it perfectly fits the play, with Phyllis amusing herself by coming up with “maggots and roaches and rats, oh my!”
It is no surprise that Keenan-Bolger is able to pull off the transformation from pre-teen ugly duckling into her 50s. The actress, who came to notice as Olive Ostrovsky in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, has—through Peter and the Starcatcher and To Kill a Mockingbird—convinced us that she can play just about anything. Parsons, who made his name in sitcomland, is especially effective as the flamboyant young boy who heads inevitably towards the scourge of the times. Watch for a moment in which Phyllis, awash in memories and gin, describes the birth of her son while Parsons sits silent, overcome by an almost visible shudder of inexpressible shame.
Lange, for her part, spends the early scenes acting the bad mother, calling for martinis from young Martha and dancing around the various apartments with Carl (to brief but well-devised steps from choreographer Christopher Gattelli). Not as versatile an acting display as her costars, it seems, until eviction 4. Playwright Vogel suddenly dispenses with words, giving Lange an extended pantomime as she adjusts (or rather does not adjust) to life alone, cut off from her children. Dressed in an unlikely silk robe of what seems to be fiery fuchsia—one of the many thrift-shop treasures she boasts about finding— over a bravura stretch of five minutes or so she restlessly tries to listen to music, prepares a microwaved TV dinner, drowns herself in drink, and appears to sink into madness.
All of this is carefully collated by director Tina Landau (Floyd Collins, Superior Donuts), who does an impressive job with script and cast. Set designer David Zinn translates this play of evictions by having the scenic elements literally unpacked by the actors, with the furniture on casters. How perfect! Toni-Leslie James does a similarly fine job dressing the characters in thrift shop wares, with Phyllis priding herself in the “ten buck” Chanels and Von Furstenbergs she pulls out of the bins with more attention than she pays to her children. Jill BC Du Boff’s soundscape is music-filled—this family listens to the radio together, constantly—while the lights by Jen Schriever and the aforementioned projections combine to keep Vogel’s fanciful drama moving towards its inevitable end.
At times it seems like Vogel has been inspired by Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie. At other times—with that problematic mother losing composure during a series of revealing telephone calls, that ignored and emotionally damaged daughter, that son itching to leave home and go out into the dangerous world—it seems like Vogel is consciously giving us an updated version of what might or could have happened to those forlorn Wingfields had they, and Williams, existed 30 years later.
In any event, Vogel’s play and players merit a visit to the Helen Hayes. Only not as a Mother’s Day treat for dear old mom.
Mother Play: A Play in Five Evictions opened April 25, 2024 at the Helen Hayes Theater and runs through June 16. Tickets and information: 2st.com
