At a efficiency of Pulitzer prize winner Paula Vogel’s late stage Tonys contender Mom Play, opening a day earlier than eligibility ends, one can decide from three shiny and syrupy themed cocktails earlier than buying a tie-in cap graced with the phrase MOTHER screamed in pink. The play itself solely has three characters, two of whom are queer with the third performed by a martini-swigging Jessica Lange, a package deal that feels nearly algorithmically designed to enchantment to a homosexual viewers.
Even at a time of overwhelming competitors on Broadway, there might be sufficient test bins ticked for some – Lange dancing to I Will Survive in a homosexual membership positively straddles a couple of – however Mom Play isn’t fairly particular or emotionally searing sufficient to dwell past its admittedly alluring reference factors. It really works in moments, most of them the results of Lange’s ineffable presence, however as a complete, it’s not as commanding as her or its title demand, maybe extra estranged aunt than mom.
Vogel makes use of her personal life as inspiration, as she did in her acclaimed 1992 play The Baltimore Waltz, each centering on siblings, each that includes a homosexual brother referred to as Carl, a stand-in for her actual brother of the identical title who died of Aids in 1988. The story is offered as “a play in 5 evictions” as a mom referred to as Phyllis (Lange) – Vogel’s mom was additionally referred to as Phyllis – uproots her kids from scuzzy residence to scuzzy residence within the wake of a messy divorce. Cash is tight and tensions are excessive and her kids, performed by Jim Parsons and Celia Keenan-Bolger, are pressured into positions of accountability as they handle a mom who self-medicates with booze.
It’s a stable structural idea that enables for some slick and deftly justified maneuvering of furnishings because the characters modify to new flats, the identical items simply barely shifted by themselves. There’s additionally a sensible use of overhead gentle as totally different fittings descend from a group above, every time a slight improve in high quality. The lived-in element of the staging is usually a win however director Tina Landau makes a couple of baffling missteps, essentially the most jarring of which is a slightly embarrassing sequence that sees large cockroaches placed on a synchronised dance routine, an intimate household drama all of a sudden turning right into a deleted scene from Joe’s Condominium.
It’s an odd second of confusion for these each on and off the stage, extra of which emerge because the play progresses, the separation of evictions feeling extra notable on the outset earlier than they grow to be nearly forgotten and dramatically unimportant by the top. Time is free and fuzzy, because it typically is after we bear in mind these early years, the play altering a number of a long time with out ever altering actor, a lofty job for its trio, a few of whom are extra capable of convincingly age than others.
We meet the siblings once they’re younger teenagers, a stretch for even essentially the most expert grownup actor to drag off and one which Vogel herself has employed earlier than in her Pulitzer winner How I Realized to Drive. In that play, Mary Louise-Parker was required to play 17 and right here the ask is even youthful, one thing {that a} assured Keenan-Bulger manages with ease, having perfected the artwork from taking part in Scout in Aaron Sorkin’s sterling 2018 adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird. She manages to evoke awkwardness and impetuousness with out falling into actors workshop parody, one thing that Parsons is notably much less efficient at all through. The ex-Massive Bang Idea star may need an completed profession on stage however his 12 years on the CBS sitcom typically go away him with an appearing fashion that may nonetheless really feel cartoonishly over-exaggerated, one thing that additionally plagued his leap to huge display main man in 2022’s flat homosexual romance Spoiler Alert.
Just like the present, he’s by no means capable of rise to the bar set by Lange who could be taking part in a barely remixed model of her best hits however effectively sufficient for it to really feel like a present in itself. Even when an prolonged sequence of her making and consuming a microwave dinner alone doesn’t have the pay-off it wants, or we deserve, spending a lot uninterrupted time dwelling with an actor of her calibre and dazzle is a wealthy reward. If we’d maybe wish to see Lange be pushed into one thing a bit additional out of her wheelhouse then that’s a bigger problem that one play is unable to completely tackle.
The inevitable descent into tragedy is unfortunately unmoving, the play working higher when specializing in the smaller bittersweet notes of the day-to-day, the all-in-this-together intimacy of a household unit pressured to try and battle underneath relatable constraints. There’s simply not sufficient devastating element within the crush of dangerous issues occurring to pressure us into feeling fairly as curdled as we should always, a well mannered clap at a degree within the season when an ebullient cheer is required. Mom Play sees a significant author teaming up with a significant actor to offer us a minor work.
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