It’s been a busy New York theatre week: Wednesday I saw Once with my cousins, Friday night I was back for I Remember Mama and today I returned to see mothers and sons. But before I talk about any of that, it’s time for an overdue rant:
I HATE SELFISH PEOPLE! I’m thinking of the ones I see every time I ride the train; they spread their (often ample) bottoms over one seat and then pile their belongings on the seats around them, completely ignoring the overhead racks available to carry home their too much stuff. They do it because they're too damn lazy to stand up and lift their packages, backpacks, suitcases and kitchen sinks to the racks, but they also do it because they are building a fort to keep the enemy – other train riders – out. They know that, given the choice, most commuters would rather keep looking for an available seat than ask a stranger to move her stuff.
The conductors try on every ride to get people to take their belongings off the seat, but it does little good. “This is a very crowded train; no feet on the seats please, no bags on the seats. Please make every seat available.” They may as well be saying Ξέρω ότι με αγνοούν. Παρακαλώ να σταματήσει να είναι τόσο εγωιστής.
Back to theatre.
Once was thoroughly enjoyable and the two leads, Paul Alexander Nolan and Joanna Christie, sang beautifully. I would be a bit surprised it won the 2012 Tony for Best Musical if I didn't remember its weak competition: Leap of Faith, Newsies and Nice Work If You Can Get It. I recommend the movie highly; once you’ve seen that you can skip the show, though I did love the show's music and sound. Ben Brantley had this to say about the soundscape in his 2012 NY Times review:
Once features another rarity in a Broadway show: amplification that enhances rather than distorts the music. (Clive Goodwin is the sound designer.) When the violins begin to play in “Once” — and the accordion and the mandolin and the guitars and the cello — the instruments swell into a collection of distinctive voices melded into a single, universal feeling.
I Remember Mama was dazzling in a very quiet way. Very dazzling. It’s a play by John Van Druten based on Kathryn Forbes' book Mama's Bank Account. The play dates from 1944 and there was a 1948 film. If you know it at all you are likely remembering the TV show, which aired from 1949 to 1957. The play focuses on the Hanson family, Norwegians who immigrated to San Francisco in the 1910s. It’s tender and wise and moving but, most remarkably, is here acted by ten women whose total years on the stage pass three centuries. Barbara Andres stars as Mama and Barbara Barrie plays Katrin; they are the two “stars,” but the other eight women (Alice Cannon, Lynn Cohen, Rita Gardner, Susan Lehman, Heather MacRae, Phyllis Somerville, Louise Sorel, Dale Soules), who all play multiple roles, male and female, are just as brilliant and just as much stars. I name them all because, while I didn't recognize any of them, you might -- and they deserve to be acknowledged as true queens of the theatre.
It was a mesmerizing performance at the Gym at Judson. We were a full house of perhaps 125, sitting against all four walls of this unconventional theatre space. Among the playgoers, sitting a few feet from me, was Meryl Streep. I only travel in the best circles!
If Mama was quietly moving, mothers and sons, Terrence McNally’s latest work, is profoundly sad and emotional at times and wildly funny at other times. It features a brilliant Tyne Daly, doing work every bit as good as her dazzling turn in Master Class, another McNally effort. This powerful drama is a continuation of his 1990 TV play, Andre’s Mother. Andre died of AIDS while living with Cal and now, twenty years later, Andre’s mother has come to pay a visit to Cal and his husband and their six-year-old son. Unlike lesser plays this one has the conviction to not hand us any feel-good endings; it speaks truth and truth is, as we all know, sometimes brutal, sometimes hysterically funny and always multi-layered.
Daly was intense, frightening, wound tight and on the verge of losing it through the ninety minutes of mothers and sons -- she too is a queen of the theatre. Frederick Weller as Cal (center) and Bobby Steggert as Will (left) were each compelling and convincing. The writing though was my favorite part. I've liked everything by McNally I've ever seen -- Love! Valour! Compassion! / Kiss of the Spider Woman / Master Class / Ragtime -- and this one joins that vaulted list. I laughed, I cried; it was better than -- well, most anything.
Cast and playwright of mothers and sons
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