‘Mothers & Sons’: Angst on a collision course

UNSYMPATHETIC CHARACTER: Tyne Daly as Katharine. Photo: Joan Marcus

By David NouNou

Set in a spacious, comfy Upper West Side apartment, we learn soon enough that Terrence McNally’s new play Mothers and Sons (a sequel to his 1990 PBS TV drama Andre’s Mother) will turn into a battleground. Everything from past and present, mothers and sons, denial vs. reality love vs. hate, closure vs. open wounds, fidelity vs. promiscuity, lovers vs. husbands, couple vs. family, are all headed for a collision course.

Katharine Gerard (Tyne Daly) has unexpectedly shown up at Cal Porter’s (Frederick Weller) apartment for no apparent reason. For what ex mother-in-law shows up at her dead son’s lover’s new apartment 20 years after his death? The talk is about Andre; the dead son. This premise reeks with touches of Vi and Sebastian Venable from Suddenly Last Summer. Andre died of AIDS and Cal was there for him till the last minute, Katharine never was, because she had issues. This sets the conflict in motion. To add to the mix, Cal has been married to Will Ogden (Bobby Steggert) for the last 11 years and they have a biological six-year-old son, Bud Ogden-Porter (Grayson Taylor). Cal, Will and Bud live the idyllic, gay married family life with nary a problem.

Well, at least till Katherine shows up, for she is the past, mother, in denial, hater, openly wounded, currently widowed and all alone. Cal is blissfully married with a husband and son, has closure, moved on, enjoys total fidelity with the new marriage laws, something that was denied to he and Andre when they were together back in the 80s, and is a living saint. If only it was that easy to meet a saint like that online? No spoiler alert, but that’s how Cal and Will met, the modern way. All the points that Mr. McNally makes are valid and make a strong case for people living in the past vs. the people who have moved on and are living in the present, but the premise is totally unbelievable. For who would ever let a mean-spirited, ex mother-in-law stay as long as she does and risk upsetting this Utopian lifestyle that is currently enjoyed by Cal and Will?

The characters as written have their hurdles to cross. Tyne Daly delivers the goods as Katharine, the mother-in-law from hell and spews every venom-filled line with gusto. Frederick Weller is saddled with a martyred character that is difficult even for a real saint to pull off. Grayson Taylor comes across as a cloying child actor that makes one yearn for any one of the kids in “The Partridge Family.” Bobby Steggert as the stay-at-home dad/writer has the balls to speak his mind and has the best line in the play; about AIDS in the 80s and all the victims it claimed all too soon will sadly be only a footnote in the future.

In this case, unfortunately and very sadly for all of us who remember those horrific times, it has already become a footnote. Had Mr. McNally written this play in the 90s, it would have been a strong and provocative play, but like all the plays that were written about AIDS in the 80s and 90s, they have already and very sadly become dated and a footnote. I wonder how many of the millennials actually know what the horrors and ravages of AIDS actually were? Alas, again only a footnote.

Nominated for 2 Tony Nominations: Best Play and Best Dramatic Actress, Tyne Daly

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published March 27, 2014
Reviewed at press performance on March 26, 2014