Mother Play

Or: Keep Your Floors Filthy

Tap dancing roaches, a magic purse, and soaring flights of muzak attend Paula Vogal’s latest work: a memory play whose magic of remembrance cannot soften the bitterness and sharp edges of the time, or the scars they carved upon those involved. Narrated by Martha (Tess Makena) this glass menagerie is boxed and unboxed over half a century, as she follows her recently divorced mother Phillis (Tracy Sunderland) and steadfast brother Carl (Alaggio Laurino) through five evictions.

Vogal’s wit sparkles like sunshine on a sea of bitterness, the waves of cruelty from mother to child and child to mother unceasing and flicking into the audience’s face at unexpected moments. Sunderland luxuriates, tossing her parental bon mots and put downs with underhanded grace, and taking to the dance floor and the cat walk with easy pleasure. The lack of venom makes the cruelties she heaps on her children sting that much more.

Cruelty is not just of the home and one of the most painful moments (and oh boy does Vogal love her painful moments) is a teenage Martha crying to her brother “I wish I was a six foot tall man for five minutes” after being attacked. The heart aching sorrow, transmuted by age but never banished, sits on Laurino and Makena like enveloping mantels. Makena muscles through with pragmatic force, tight lipped and smiling in spite. Laurino side steps it with grace and dignity, aiming for higher things. Both end up with their eyes sparkling and voice taught with tears, painful to see.

Yet still there is love enough to cut through the all consuming loneliness and disappointment, though only just enough and that too may fall too short.