OUR MOTHER'S BRIEF AFFAIR Previews

Previews begin tonight for Manhattan Theatre Club's Broadway Premiere of Richard Greenberg's Our Mother's Brief Affair starring Tony Award Winner Linda Lavin, directed by Lynne Meadow.

So who's going tonight?

Was anyone on here there last night? Curious to hear about this one.

I caught Our Mother's Brief Affair and overall found it to be entertaining, with some very nice performances from all four actors. The play focuses on Anna, played wonderfully by Lavin, and her two grown children, Seth and Abby, played by Greg Keller and Kate Arrington. Seth and Abby continuously break the fourth wall to narrate or comment on their mother's deathbed stories. To be honest, it reminded me a little of Cory Michael Smith's constant narration in Greenberg's adaptation of Breakfast at Tiffany's, but wheras that narration sunk the play, the running commentary here was far more amusing and felt less intrusive. 

I really found Lavin's work to be quite lovely. Anna is less acerbic than Rita in The Lyons or Silda from Other Desert Cities. There's a fragility to Lavin's performance this go-around that complements her razor sharp delivery of a zinger nicely. 

The plot focuses on Anna making a deathbed confession to her children about an affair she had back in the early 1970s. There's flashback work that the children get to comment on and a revelation at the end of act one about the identity of the man with whom she is sleeping. (It's a real-life person; the children stop the show and bring up the house lights to explain who was to the audience- even so there was a lot of Wikipedia-ing going on around me at intermission!)

The reveal makes the play and the second act more interesting. This is right up MTC's alley and I think it will go over well with their subscriber base. 

I agree with you about the set. I did not care for it at all. I guess he was going for the "October colors" that Lavin's character was so fond of, but I don't think the concept was strong.

Exactly 2 hours, with intermission. 

I saw this last night, and didn't think much of it. Linda Lavin was very good, and had a few very funny lines, but I didn't care about the characters or the plot by the end of it. The narration throughout irritated me far more than it did in "Breakfast at Tiffany's," and I found Seth, the son, very obnoxious (Abby, the daughter, is barely a character.) The big "twists" make the whole thing a bit more interesting but still don't make it a great play. 

Would someone mind putting the spoiler alert button and saying who the real-life person it is revealed that the main character had an affair with?

Saw this show last night and it was my first show of 2016. I think I can only go up from here because this wasn't very good.

It's pretty safe to say that this will definitely have the distinction of the worst set I will see all year. It honestly looked like it took about 15 seconds to come up with and a single trip to the basement of generic theatre furniture to find everyone on the stage. There is a bench facing the audience and for some reason there is an bench facing backstage which really annoyed me as it seemed like the set designers only attempt at something. The hospital room portion of the set just looked like an old living room. 

The lighting was nearly as bad as the set. It was like someone took a Lighting Design 101 class and came into this show. The use of every single cliched Gobo you could think of (windows, trees, leaves) really started to aggravate me. I get that they wanted to hammer home Linda Lavin's love of October but I felt like I could have gotten a concussion from all the beating. I also hated when the house lights came up after the reveal because it felt very contrived since the kids were speaking to the audience the entire show. 

The show starts off a bit of a slog with the son speaking to the audience about his mother and she interjects comments that go along with the listed attributes. This went on for awhile and didn't really serve a purpose to me. The whole first act was kind of a bore to me until the reveal which made Act Two a bit more interesting and kept me engaged until the end. 

The acting was good across the board. I was getting pretty irritated with the constant narration which made it feel more like I was watching people read an audiobook. I also didn't really understand why both kids had to be gay as it didn't add anything to the story except for one small moment. It seemed like the writer knew that only gays and old people would see the show so that was tacked on. 

It is beyond me why MTC ended up putting this at the Friedman since the story is so slight and the set might have ended up looking less hideous on a smaller stage. It seems more of a fit for Stage I especially coming after RIPCORD which couldn't always sell that space. I don't foresee this being a hit for MTC.

i believe the narration device is used because the son is prone to "narrate his own life" per what his sister says in the first act. My biggest issue is if you have to dead stop your show to explain who someone is to the audience, stop writing the play you are writing. And again this is a great example of another play that just ends on a line with no real significants but plays it up as this big grand gesture, was very disappointing although there is some hilarious lines within this stew, Assembled Parties was WAY better, this felt like a step in the wrong direction for Richard and i feel now i know why it took 6 years after its premiere to make it to Broadway. 

Updated On: 1/4/16 at 02:05 PM

Seeing it tomorrow night. No idea if we will agree with the majority or not.

I think Linda Lavin is giving a great performance in a terrible play. When she is performing I was engaged and transfixed. When the terribly written children are harping, I zoned out. I'd actually keep watching Linda sit in a chair than watch the other actors. 

Personally, I disliked this as much as Mothers and Sons. I feel like McNally, as well as Greenberg in this case, write shows for elderly people. The house was filled with the elderly and they laughed a lot. The references were really old and I didn't get many of them. The elderly around me loved it. 

The moment the house lights go up and the kids have to explain why who her mother had an affair with is shocking, I knew the ship had sunk. It's ridiculous. 

However, I still felt Lavin was wonderful. Go if you can get a cheap seat.