Mothers and Sons Previews — Page 4

I saw this last night with rush tickets and was underwhelmed by the writing. The long pauses and forced dialogue about nothing that popped up to show the tension between the mother and the two men went on too long, causing them to become boring to me as an audience member. A lot of the dialogue discussing the issues was well written, but at times these interesting gems of thought would pop out unprovoked, which made it difficult to connect the scattered thoughts into a strong message.

That being said, Tyne Daly did very well with the writing she was given. Bobby Steggert gave a believable, though not a layered performance. Frederick Weller was fine, but I, too, found his strange speech pattern distracting. The set was lovely, though by no means anything new, and all other technical elements were perfectly acceptable

The mother's naivete about certain things rings false, it gets preachy, and its plot is contrived. (McNally has characters too conveniently leaving the stage far too many times.) But that said, I still enjoyed it and found it engrossing most of the way. Also, the performances of the three adults are stellar. Definitely worth seeing. I hope it runs.

Saw this play and was very disappointed-one of McNally's weakest. It shows his age. He seems to write for elderly straight white people. Palatable rich gay men is his forte.

The stereotypical characters and the preachiness of the piece felt overbearing. Tyne was superb-nuanced and doing what she could with the character and the writing.

The staging was odd-people leaving just long enough for someone to deliver a preachy monologue got to me. Also, who leaves a little boy alone in a bathtub for so long. Just weird.

I thought it was an odd piece-very muddled in its messages.

I give it a thumbs down.

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Has anyone rushed or gone through TDF post opening? I am looking to catch this and want to know what my best option is. Seating location and any other info is greatly appreciated :)

right--I gathered that. I just wondered if anything from the first play, or teleplay, is directly refered to.

GreasedLightning, I went last night via TDF. My seat was in the rear mezz, row D, all the way to the left next to the wall. It thought it was going to be too far, but once the show started, it was fine. There was a hand rail in front of me, but it never really got in the way of the action.

I loved this show. I had a friend give a really lukewarm response to it, but it really touched on something about loss for me. I thought it was beautiful, but then again, there is something to be said about seeing something at just the right time in your own life.

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I saw this tonight via tdf and was in the second row center orchestra. I thought I would be in the rear mezz but that section was completely empty.

Updated On: 4/6/14 at 12:40 AM

Saw the show Saturday evening from the front row and thought it was outstanding. Daly is such an incredible presence and was simply mesmerizing, even when she wasn't speaking. I found her character to be quite sympathetic--heartbreaking, actually--not the evil ice queen I was expecting. This is one of the few plays I've seen in recent memory that stirred up such an exhausting level of emotion. I highly recommend it but fear that because the mezz was mostly empty on a Saturday night, it won't finish out its run.