REVIEW: Mother Play by Paula Vogel – Melbourne Theatre Company

Late in Mother Play, there is a long sequence when Phyllis Herman – the titular mother, is alone in her home, going through a routine that is the culmination of her life; she is free of responsibility, but everything has contracted to a single point. After years of raising two children by herself – and then pushing them both away, Phyllis is free to do whatever she wants, in as large a place as she’s ever lived, but without anyone to enjoy the time with her.

The scene is protracted, almost painfully so, like a sequence out of late David Lynch. It’s mundane, but beautiful in its observation of a life in motion. Mother combs her wig. Mother makes a TV dinner. Mother opens the mail and files the bills away for later. She dances alone. She eats alone. She consults a crystal ball. It’s free from dialogue and the audience must sit in the silence and contemplate Phyllis’ choices in a way she doesn’t really seem to be doing for herself.

American playwright Paula Vogel’s latest work is a memory play, in the tradition of Tennessee Williams, an exploration of two children’s relationship with their mother, like in The Glass Menagerie. As with that classic, Vogel’s Mother Play is semi-autobiographical. It’s the story of difficult mother from depression-era parents, resistant at the idea of being a mother and unable to deal with the fact that both of her children have come out as gay. The brother in this play is named after Vogel’s own brother, Carl, who died of AIDS during the 1980s.

The play is set over decades, starting in the early 1960s, when Carl and Martha are still in school, their father has left and their mother has found them a below ground apartment in Washington DC. She’s found a job as a typist in the government’s secretarial pool, which gives them a roof over their head, but the promise of McDonald’s burgers only once a month.

The subtitle of the work – A Play in Five Evictions – suggests a kind of structure, but the mood of the play is dreamlike, switching tones throughout and not just at the change of scene or decade. When they find their first apartment is infested with cockroaches, the kids are tasked with killing as many as they can – and we’re suddenly in a sitcom with the logic that suggests. Phyllis is going to send the cockroaches in the mail with their rent cheque, so the landlord has to finally deal with the bugs. Thus, eviction number one.

Daughter Martha is narrating the story, jumping through time to the most dramatic, most salient events of a trio of lives she’s trying to reckon with. Yael Stone carries the weight of the show in much the same way Martha must carry the responsibility of keeping the family together or looking after them all when times get tough. Stone paints a portrait of a character that loses their youthful enthusiasm quickly and puts on a kind of armour to get her through the rest of their life. Her work is detailed and subtle in the most compelling way.

Ash Flanders is perfect as the loquacious Carl, whose dreams of being a writer buoy a lot of the early scenes that are steeped in desperate sadness. We know from minute one that mother is an alcoholic, that their circumstances put them below the poverty line and he must help Martha through an assault she endures on a terrifying school bus ride. Carl comes off as full of himself, but he genuinely loves his sister and we know it’s both of them against the world.

Mother is a cruel woman who struggles with the role that has been dealt to her. She’s also the end result of being raised by parents who were aloof and uncaring. Phyllis’ moods are unpredictable and she jumps from supportive to dismissive in the blink of an eye. Sigrid Thornton is wonderful in the role, giving the character hidden depths that are mostly murky and black. The way she carries herself tells us a lot and that extended sequence where she’s left alone to wander an otherwise empty abode is stunning. It’s a cliché to say we’d watch our favourite actors read the phone book, but I was enraptured by Thornton opening envelopes, eating a too-hot meal and smoking a cigarette while applying hairspray.

The beats of the story are not wildly original and the outcomes not particularly surprising, but Lee Lewis’ production and its dreamlike logic keeps the audience’s interest through shifts from the real to the surreal throughout. Even the transitions between scenes become increasingly bizarre as the show progresses.

Christina Smith’s set and costumes are inventive and flexible; the family’s furniture dragged through the decades scattered in different configurations across the years. The digression to a gay club is strikingly realised in a sequence that is joyous and weighed down by the shame that Phyllis feels about her children.

Niklas Pajanti’s lighting is intuitive and suggestive of place and time passing. Many of the spaces we visit are illuminated only just enough, suggesting distant memory and an incomplete recollection. Kelly Ryall’s sound design fills out the spaces suspended in darkness, giving us a fuller picture, sometimes creating tension in those tricky transitions.

Even though I enjoyed the languid pacing of Phyllis’ solo scene, the play is a bit diffuse in places. Yes, the transitions are clever, sometimes hilariously funny, but when they allow the dramatic tension to dissipate, it’s a real shame. The rich performances, the stylish design and the slowly disassembling family dynamics keep things interesting from beginning to end, even when some parts feel sluggish.

Mother Play is about performing a role that you may not have planned for and may struggle with your whole life. It’s strange and meditative, winding and elliptical. And the cast is excellent.

Mother Play is at the Melbourne Theatre Company's Southbank Theatre until August 2

Photos: Brett Boardman



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