Helen Shaw reviews Paula Vogel’s “Mother Play,” starring Jessica Lange; Shaina Taub’s musical “Suffs”; and Amy Herzog’s “Mary Jane,” with Rachel McAdams.
In the autofictional “Mother Play,” at Second Stage’s Hayes Theatre, Celia Keenan-Bolger stars as Martha, a lightly disguised version of Vogel, and Jim Parsons portrays a version of the playwright’s brother Carl, who died of complications from AIDS in 1988. The play, which begins by flashing back to the early sixties, follows Martha and Carl for four decades as they deal with their hard-drinking, self-regarding single mom, Phyllis, played with a wonderful, lurching grace by Jessica Lange.
But the director Tina Landau and Lange have added an unscripted gesture. As Phyllis wanders about, she tucks a flower briefly, tenderly, under her chin. In the next scene, touch-averse Phyllis places Martha’s hand in the same hollow. Phyllis can be devastatingly awful, but this little grace note shows us how much her daughter—so sure that she’s unloved—has actually been on her mother’s mind.
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