‘MOTHER PLAY’: Jim Parsons & Jessica Lange. Photo: Joan Marcus.

MOTHER PLAY: A PLAY IN FIVE EVICTIONS
By Paula Vogel
Directed by Tina Landau
Second Stage at The Hayes Theater
240 West 44th St.
(212) 541-4516
https://2st.com/shows/mother-play

By Scott Harrah

A stellar cast and outstanding performances make Mother Play: A Play in Five Evictions one of the year’s must-see dramas. Paula Vogel, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright best known for her masterpiece How I Learned to Drive, delves into painful recollections of her own family with shades of Tennessee Williams’ classic memory play The Glass Menagerie.

Like Amanda Wingfield in Glass Menagerie, the narrative centers on a single mother from the South and her unrealistic dreams for her kids. Jessica Lange stars as Phyllis, a strict and demanding mother who wields power over her two teenage children, Martha (Celia Keenan-Bolger) and Carl (Jim Parsons).

The plays opens in 1962 in suburb of Washington, D.C. Phyllis and her kids have just moved into a new apartment. Phyllis is a divorcée with a drinking problem. Son Carl, 14, is starting to realize he’s probably gay. Daughter Martha, 12, is also learning she might be gay too, and her mother makes her read—in a passive-aggressive demand—the lesbian classic novel The Well of Loneliness as a cautionary tale.

Jessica Lange gives one of the best performances of her career as Phyllis, a woman who keeps moving her kids into disheveled apartments infested with roaches and mice. Phyllis is not exactly a likable character. She is shrill, demanding, volatile and homophobic, but Ms. Lange gives depth to this villainess with her seamless delivery of rapid-fire dialogue and manic mannerisms. It’s hard to take our eyes off Ms. Lange whenever she’s on the stage, and that’s because her performance is so heartbreaking and engrossing.

Reportedly based on playwright Paula Vogel’s real life, Mother Play is both a dramatic confessional and a portrait of a woman with unrealistic dreams for both herself and her children. The story unfolds in five different scenes spanning the decades or “evictions” as we see the family descend into more grief and all are on the edge of madness. Each attempt by Phyllis to control her children’s lives fails, and she just becomes more domineering and despicable.

Jim Parsons as Carl and Celia Keenan-Bolger are both exceptional and demonstrate a believable brother-and-sister chemistry that truly makes the show worth seeing. They are forced to mix their mother’s drinks and find her chic outfits while they both put up with her constant criticism and disapproval.

Mother Play, performed in one act, is not an easy drama to watch despite its brevity. Ms. Vogel’s portrait of family discord is brutally real, and while the show is not always perfect, director Tina Landau gets such fine performances from the cast that the flaws don’t matter in the end. Mother Play is a trenchant American tragedy for these troubled times.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published May 12, 2024
Reviewed at April 30, 2024 press  performance

‘MOTHER PLAY’: Jessica Lange & Celia Keenan-Bolger. Photo: Joan Marcus.

‘MOTHER PLAY’: Jim Parsons & Celia Keenan-Bolger. Photo: Joan Marcus.

‘MOTHER PLAY’: Celia Keenan-Bolger & Jim Parsons. Photo: Joan Marcus.

‘MOTHER PLAY’: Jessica Lange. Photo: Joan Marcus.

‘MOTHER PLAY’: Jim Parsons. Photo: Joan Marcus.

‘MOTHER PLAY’: Jessica Lange. Photo: Joan Marcus.

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‘HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE’: David Morse & Mary-Louise Parker. Photo: Jeremy Daniel.

HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE
Written by Paula Vogel
Directed by Mark Brokaw
Through May 29, 2022
Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
261 West 47th Street
(212-239-6200), www.ManhattanTheatreClub.com

By David NouNou

How I Learned to Drive, Paula Vogel’s 1998 Pulitzer Prize-winning memory play, lives eternally when done well. The thrill of seeing the original cast, Mary-Louise Parker and David Morse reprising their roles of L’il Bit and Uncle Peck, is a theatrical wonder that seldom happens. It’s been 25 years since they created these roles and it seems as if time has stood still for these two to bring their characters back to life.

Set throughout the 1960s, the story follows the strained sexual relationship between Li’l Bit (Mary-Louise Parker) and her aunt’s husband, Uncle Peck (David Morse) from her adolescence through her teenage years and into college. The play delves into pedophilia and the ability to control and manipulate. All this is in the guise of learning how to drive a car.

The narrative shifts to different time periods starting in 1969 in a parking lot in rural Maryland. Li’l Bit is 17 and we see what seems for the first time, Uncle Peck unhooking her brassiere through her flannel shirt and admiring her breasts. She feels discomfort with this act, and the scene breaks into Li’l Bit describing her dysfunctional family life and the dynamics of her family. Her father left her mother early on, her grandparents called her Li’l Bit because of her small breasts when she was young. Her biological Aunt Mary was married to Uncle Peck and he became her father figure.

Like any memory play, times shift and one thinks of things at different stages of their life. Li’l Bit has a lot of memories of events that took place in 1968, to 1964, and all the way back to 1961. Whether it was in the car, a restaurant, a motel, the memories keep flooding.

Inserted is a wonderful scene of Aunt Mary (Johanna Day) confessing to the audience that she knew what was happening. The fact that her husband was an alcoholic, but Li’l Bit in a deal with Uncle Peck stopped him from drinking. He shaped up, and she knew that Li’l Bit was manipulating her uncle to get him to do some of these things. In a heartbreaking moment, Aunt Mary says that she just has to sit it out till Li’l Bit goes to college in a year and she can have her husband back.

The whole play has to be seen to be appreciated for its nuances. Not everything is as clear as it seems. There are gray shadings, but that’s for the audience to decide. Mark Brokaw, the director keeps the proceedings moving without any confusion of the different times.

Seeing the original cast members—Mary-Louise Parker, David Morse and Johanna Day—is one of the highlights of this theatrical season. A definite must-see.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published April 24, 2022
Reviewed at April 23, 2022 press performance.

‘HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE’: Davis Morse & Mary-Louise Parker. Photo: Jeremy Daniel.

‘HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE’: Chris Myers & Mary-Louise Parker. Photo: Jeremy Daniel.

‘HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE’: (left to right) Mary-Louise Parker, Johanna Day & Alyssa May Gold. Photo: Jeremy Daniel.

‘HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE’: Mary-Louise Parker & David Morse.

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‘INDECENT’: The cast. Photo: Carol Rosegg

INDECENT
By Paula Vogel
Directed by Rebecca Taichman
Cort Theatre
138 West 48th Street
212-239-6200, www.IndecentBroadway.com

By Scott Harrah

More than merely a drama about a play that shocked early 20th century audiences, Paula Vogel’s Indecent illuminates a dark period of history when anti-Semitism and anti-immigrant sentiment were rampant in America. No, the year is not 2017 but 1906 to the 1920s through 1940s. There are numerous themes and subtexts in this complex, fascinating and sometimes confusing drama, from the troubled staging of Yiddish writer Sholem Asch’s theatrical potboiler God of Vengeance to the disturbing tide of prejudice toward Jews and their culture evolving from the turn of the 20th century and onward.

This is the proverbial Brechtian epic, immediately grabbing one’s attention and posing questions about art, decency, and the boundaries of morality and faith. It’s exhausting yet riveting to watch from the opening scene, with Yiddish actors onstage speaking as ashes literally fall off their bodies. This is only the beginning of the layers upon layers of symbolism that unfold throughout the 100-minute show.

At first glance, one thinks the story is simply about Mr. Asch’s turgid Yiddish drama, a sensational tale about a brothel owner, his daughter, a prostitute, a lesbian affair and desecration of a Torah. Asch’s play was a hit on the Yiddish theater circuit in Europe, but scandalous indeed when it was translated into English and debuted in New York at the Provincetown Playhouse in 1922. Although the lesbian themes were toned down (and a Sapphic kissing scene cut) for the Broadway transfer to the Apollo Theatre in 1923, the cast and producer were arrested mid-performance for obscenity a few weeks into the run.

Indecent, however, is really less about the puritanical reaction to God of Vengeance in America and more of an homage to the death of Yiddish theater and the tragedy of Jews across the world from the early 1900s up through the Holocaust. In addition, the story shows how America, decades before feminism, could not handle not only homosexuality but anything that depicted women as something beyond wives, daughters or prostitutes.

Despite the heavy subject matter, Indecent is a visually arresting piece of theater. Seven actors portray “the troupe,” from Lemml, the stage manager of Asch’s play (Richard Topol), while others play musicians performing klezmer-style music (with original compositions by Lisa Gutkin and Aaron Halva). The stage features constantly changing projections of Yiddish, Hebrew and English supertitles and scene settings, from Warsaw in 1906 (when Asch first wrote the play) to Berlin, various stages and attics across Europe to New York City. The action jumps around from city to city like a TV miniseries or popular novel (a narrative technique that is always tricky on the stage).

There is a frenetic lyricism to Rebecca Taichman’s direction of the actors, many of whom play multiple roles. It is Ms. Taichman’s manic pacing of the evolving plot, musicians and actors dancing in circles–and the endless projections of the supertitles–that keeps us glued to the action but grows tiresome at times.

Indecent is a show that has quite a backstory itself, with Ms. Taichman basing the chronicle of God of Vengeance (and its obscenity trial over the first lesbian kiss in American theater) as a directing thesis at Yale. She and Paula Vogel worked over a period of seven years to develop the opus, after productions at the Yale Rep, La Jolla Playhouse and an Off-Broadway run at the Vineyard last year.

There are outstanding ensemble performances here, from Richard Topol as Lemml and Max Gordon Moore as Sholem Asch to Katrina Lenk and Adina Verson as the actresses portraying lovers. Musicians Matt Darriau, Lisa Gutkin and Aaron Halva add an eerie, haunting sincerity to the play with their original compositions.

Yes, the show is over-the-top, overly poetic, and perhaps too cerebral and academic for its own good. However, the overall message of Indecent is what makes it so relevant and topical today. Because, much like the political climate leading up to World War II, we also now live in age of xenophobia and prejudice about sexuality, race and religion. It is chilling when one thinks that the censorship, bigotry and fascism that were pervasive in the days of God of Vengeance (and created so much human suffering) could easily be repeated in 21st century America.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published April 18, 2017
Reviewed at press performance on April 15, 2017

‘INDECENT’: (left to right) Aaron Halva (with accordion), Matt Darriau (with clarinet), Lisa Gutkin (with violin) & company. Photo: Carol Rosegg

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‘INDECENT’: The cast. Photo: Carol Rosegg

‘INDECENT’: The cast. Photo: Carol Rosegg

‘INDECENT’: Max Gordon Moore & Richard Topol. Photo: Carol Rosegg

‘INDECENT’: Max Gordon Moore & Richard Topol. Photo: Carol Rosegg

‘INDECENT’: Katrina Lenk & Adina Verson. Photo: Carol Rosegg

‘INDECENT’: Max Gordon Moore & Adina Verson. Photo: Carol Rosegg

‘INDECENT’: Adina Verson & Katrina Lenk. Photo: Carol Rosegg

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