Mother Play (a play in five evictions), by Paula Vogel – Q Theatre: 4-20 September
Hot off its 2024 run on Broadway, MOTHER PLAY has us packing and unpacking — emotions, family relationships, sexual orientations, living arrangements —all of them. All are unpacked, laid out, and put back. As our narrator Martha admits: she’s getting good at it.
Written by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel (How I Learned to Drive) we’re lucky to have this here so quickly from its award-winning Broadway run with Jessica Lange playing the ageing matriarch still meddling in her children’s lives.
Jennifer Ludlam takes the title role here, dominating the stage as the gin-swilling solo mother struggling to support, and accept, her children and their choices. (And her own!)
Her two children complete the cast —sensible Martha (intelligently played by Amanda Tito) and the more flamboyant Carl, mother’s favourite: Tim Earl enjoys the chance to act out here. Ludlam revels in the chance to dominate.
If there’s a tagline, she says, it’s “homophobia begins at home.”
Our cast of just three keep the play tight, bouncing off each other beautifully. Movement is key; especially delightful is watching Tito and Earl show the years progress by their changes in bodily movement, from the bouncy awkwardness of youth and adolescence to the more sedate movements of maturity. This is good theatre craft.
The stage itself greets us as a warm pink triangle. (Think Pink!) The excitement of moving, it’s explained, overtakes the pathos of eviction. We have boxes to pack and unpack, music to dance to, magic handbags from which anything can appear, insects that come and go, and furniture that never leaves its wrapping — and it’s not just the furniture that keeps itself well-hidden here. There’s a lot of emotion to unwrap here too, eventually.
It’s a comedy, says playwright Paula Vogel. “Until it isn’t.”
We’re swiftly transported. It’s episodic, not plot-driven, but the episodes are carefully chosen to show differing attitudes to family and sexual identity, and the decades to suggest cultural change and events (both happy and tragic) that confront each character.
It’s delicately played. There’s a beautiful scene where all we have is silence, and the smell of hot dogs. The ending itself (no spoilers) is bittersweet, and will affect many who will identify.
And there’s resolution, which we embrace.
Theatre Peter
Mother Play by Silo Theatre is on at Q Theatre 4-23 September.
Interview here with the playwright.
Tickets and info here.
Photos by Andi Crown.
