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MOTHER PLAY Opening Night Critics’ Reviews

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#1

MOTHER PLAY Opening Night Critics’ Reviews

Posted: 4/24/24 at 9:00pm

Pulitzer Prize winner Paula Vogel (How I Learned to Drive) has written a bitingly funny and unflinchingly honest new play about the hold our family has over us and the surprises we find when we unpack the past.

It’s 1962, just outside of D.C., and matriarch Phyllis is supervising her teenage children, Carl and Martha, as they move into a new apartment. Phyllis has strong ideas about what her children need to do and be to succeed, and woe be the child who finds their own path. Bolstered by gin and cigarettes, the family endures — or survives — the changing world around them. Blending flares of imaginative theatricality, surreal farce, and deep tenderness, this beautiful rollercoaster ride reveals timeless truths of love, family, and forgiveness.

The show opens on Thursday, April 25, 2024 at the Helen Hayes Theatre.

#4

MOTHER PLAY Opening Night Critics’ Reviews

Posted: 4/25/24 at 9:25pm

NY Stage Review:

MOTHER PLAY: A MEMORY PLAY, PLUS COCKROACHES

By Frank Scheck

★★★☆☆ Jessica Lange, Celia Keenan-Bolger, and Jim Parsons star in the world premiere of Paula Vogel's comedy-drama depicting the lives of a mother and her two children over the course of decades.

"Under the direction of Tina Landau, Keenan-Bolger and Parsons are predictably fine in their roles, even if they’re not being stretched much. But it’s Lange who commands the evening, displaying the sort of star power and stage command that make her a Broadway diva. Just the sight of her in various outfits, including ‘60s-era hippie denim, is a pleasure, and it’s worth the price of admission to see her launch into disco dancing (the audience, predictably, goes wild). She’s even given a lengthy silent, solo interlude in which she listens to music, has a drink, smokes, and attempts to eat a frozen meal that’s made no less unpalatable by generous doses of hot sauce. Other than conveying the character’s loneliness in her older years, the scene doesn’t have much reason for being. But as brilliantly played by Lange, it’s an acting lesson that every budding thespian should study."

#7

MOTHER PLAY Opening Night Critics’ Reviews

Posted: 4/25/24 at 9:32pm

NYT Critic's Pick from Soloski

Review: In ‘Mother Play,’ Paula Vogel Unboxes a Family Story

Jessica Lange stars as a ferocious matriarch alongside Celia Keenan-Bolger and Jim Parsons in Vogel’s latest family drama.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/25/theater/mother-play-review-jessica-lange-paula-vogel.html

"The characters age perhaps more than 40 years in the play’s 105 minutes. Another actress as Phyllis might have done more to communicate the small ravages of time, but Lange concentrates instead on her ageless ferocity and charm. She is supported, sturdily, by Keenan-Bolger, who imbues Martha, a playwright like Vogel, with goodness, righteousness and a gift for plain speaking, and by Parsons, a born clown savvy enough to show the pain behind the buffoonery.

The director Tina Landau, a longtime collaborator, embraces that buffoonery, almost to a fault. During scene changes, the roaches don’t scurry out of sight. Instead they dance, to a jazzy version of “La Cucaracha.” There is more dancing, when Lange and Parsons burn, baby, burn in a duet set to “Disco Inferno.”

Does that sound too silly for a play about death and estrangement? Probably. But silliness has always been a signature of Vogel’s work and, at least for me, sometimes a source of frustration. Reading her early plays, I have thought, Can’t you be serious? But Vogel, who loves a dirty joke, knows that laughter is a way of taking things seriously. Sometimes the best way."

#9

MOTHER PLAY Opening Night Critics’ Reviews

Posted: 4/25/24 at 9:34pm

Theatermania:

Review: Jessica Lange as a Parent From Hell in Paula Vogel’s Emotional Mother Play

Lange stars opposite Jim Parsons and Celia Keenan-Bolger in this new work at the Hayes Theater.

https://www.theatermania.com/news/review-jessica-lange-as-a-parent-from-hell-in-paula-vogels-emotional-mother-play_1738247/

"There’s a surprising amount of levity in this dark play, and in that, author Vogel reveals a hard truth: Even terrible parents can be fun and loving sometimes, and that keeps their children coming back to them. Mother Play ends exactly as expected, but the emotional rollercoaster is worth the ride."

#10

MOTHER PLAY Opening Night Critics’ Reviews

Posted: 4/25/24 at 9:37pm

McHenry for Vulture is mixed:

An Evictable Menagerie: Paula Vogel’s Mother Play

https://www.vulture.com/article/theater-review-paula-vogel-mother-play.html

"Parsons always seems like he’s trying to audition for Williams when he gets serious; and here, all three actors’ performances get cramped and constrained, maybe owing to their sense memory of those other roles. Parsons, especially, struggles to get under Carl’s skin. He gives good exaggerated sashay and dewy-eyed fantasizing but doesn’t have a good way to pull back the energy and let other colors in. We get the performance he’s putting on, both to satisfy his mother and defy the world around him, but little sense of what lies underneath. Keenan-Bolger’s part is even trickier, requiring her to flit between memory and commentary, and she pulls it off straightforwardly, as she happens to be an expert in the particular field of being an adult playing a child (see To Kill a Mockingbird and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee). But it would be nice to see her just get to play an adult.

As Phyllis, Lange has to carry the play, which she manages to do in fits and starts. What she can do is cast a spell."

#11

MOTHER PLAY Opening Night Critics’ Reviews

Posted: 4/25/24 at 9:39pm

WSJ praises the performances, but not the play

‘Mother Play’ Review: Jessica Lange’s Tortured Vision of Parenthood

The actress stars as a miserable mother to two children, portrayed by Jim Parsons and Celia Keenan-Bolger, in this fragmentary drama by Paula Vogel.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/mother-play-review-jessica-langes-tortured-vision-of-parenthood-2850835f

"too much of “Mother Play” feels evanescent, more a personal exercise in exorcising ghosts than a play that resonates on deeper levels."

#12

MOTHER PLAY Opening Night Critics’ Reviews

Posted: 4/25/24 at 9:40pm

B- from Entertainment Weekly

Mother Play review: Jim Parsons gives standout performance in predictable story

The new work by playwright Paula Vogel ("How I Learned to Drive") also stars Jessica Lange and Celia Keenan-Bolger.

https://ew.com/mother-play-review-jim-parsons-jessica-lange-broadway-8639191

"

Parsons is the standout here. It’s awesome as always to see the actor use his post-Big Bang Theory security to be a prolific Broadway actor, and his performance is so funny, charming, and moving (look out for one riveting monologue where he explains his sexuality by imagining himself as Anastasia Romanov in the midst of the Russian Revolution) that you really feel his absence after Carl moves away to college and embraces the counterculture that Phyllis hates so much. Keenan-Bolger has the least flashy role, serving as narrator and emotional sounding-board for both of the other characters, but really gives the play its heart.

Lange is as good as you might expect playing an embittered aging woman pained by the way society has brushed her aside, but her performance isn’t powerful enough to justify some of Vogel’s creative risks. After Phyllis succeeds in alienating both her children for a time, there comes a scene that is just Lange alone on stage for several minutes, puttering around her apartment. It's obviously meant to illustrate the loneliness of this woman who wasn't given many choices in life and still can't help making the wrong ones over and over again, but it doesn't take long to make that point. The scene gets boring very quickly."

#13

MOTHER PLAY Opening Night Critics’ Reviews

Posted: 4/25/24 at 9:42pm

Daily Beast:

Jessica Lange Is Thrilling, Even if ‘Mother Play’ on Broadway Isn’t

STAR TURN

It is mesmerizing, to watch Jessica Lange act on a Broadway stage, even if the play pales in comparison. Plus, “The Great Gatsby” made into a shamelessly bonkers musical.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/jessica-lange-is-thrilling-even-if-mother-play-on-broadway-isnt

"When just mother and daughter are left, there are some piercingly tender moments between Phyllis—now in the grips of dementia—and Martha that land. But mostly, Mother Play feels a cold, airless, and puzzling tundra to orienteer—despite the can-this-be-happening electricity of watching Jessica Lange perform on stage."

#14

MOTHER PLAY Opening Night Critics’ Reviews

Posted: 4/25/24 at 9:44pm

Paulson vs. McAdams vs. Lange for Best Actress may be the buzziest category of the awards this year.

"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."
#16

MOTHER PLAY Opening Night Critics’ Reviews

Posted: 4/25/24 at 10:16pm

These are a tad better than I expected, but they're correct that the players are better than the play.

If we're not having fun, then why are we doing it? These are DISCUSSION boards, not mutual admiration boards. Discussion only occurs when we are willing to hear what others are thinking, regardless of whether it is alignment to our own thoughts.
#18

MOTHER PLAY Opening Night Critics’ Reviews

Posted: 4/25/24 at 10:21pm

NY Sun:

A High-Powered Cast Admirably Handles Paula Vogel’s Sometimes Difficult ‘Mother Play’

Jessica Lange, Jim Parsons, and a Broadway favorite, Celia Keenan-Bolger star in a semi-autobiographical work that suggests that Vogel harbors considerable anger toward the original ‘Mother,’ and also regards her with some pity.

https://www.nysun.com/article/a-high-powered-cast-admirably-handles-paula-vogels-sometimes-difficult-mother-play

#19

MOTHER PLAY Opening Night Critics’ Reviews

Posted: 4/25/24 at 10:31pm

Kad said: "Paulson vs. McAdams vs. Lange for Best Actress may be the buzziest category of the awards this year."

And the Paulson vs. Lange dynamic is particularly compelling given their extensive history of working together on Ryan Murphy projects.

#21

MOTHER PLAY Opening Night Critics’ Reviews

Posted: 4/25/24 at 10:57pm

Paulson also played Laura to Jessica's Amanda in THE GLASS MENAGERIE (a role Celia has also done) and which MOTHER PLAY feels rather derivative of.

#24

MOTHER PLAY Opening Night Critics’ Reviews

Posted: 4/26/24 at 1:53pm

EDSOSLO858 said: "DTLI Consensus:Motheris mothering, and 44th Street just got a lot more dramatic for it.

7 positive (including the NYT), 4 mixed.

https://didtheylikeit.com/shows/mother-play/"

Honestly, color me shocked. I found this to be a very lazy, movie-of-the-week effort by Vogel and not worthy of the talent on stage. It begs the question, would this have been produced without the heavy star power behind it?

Check out my eBay page for sales on Playbills!! www.ebay.com/usr/missvirginiahamm
#25

MOTHER PLAY Opening Night Critics’ Reviews

Posted: 4/26/24 at 2:04pm

Yes, the performances are better than the script, and I think one more rewrite could bring it to the level I expect from Vogel.

But, I have to respect the autobiographical story. It can't be easy to put your family's weaknesses on display for criticism.

If we're not having fun, then why are we doing it? These are DISCUSSION boards, not mutual admiration boards. Discussion only occurs when we are willing to hear what others are thinking, regardless of whether it is alignment to our own thoughts.

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