Maya Rudolph may have recently been declared as the mother of Mother's Day 2024 and late-night TV in a must-watch, Gaga-esque opening sketch courtesy of SNL. However, and with apologies to Maya, the current Mother of Broadway is two-time Oscar winner Jessica Lange. She is currently headlining Paula Vogel's appropriately titled Mother Play at NYC's (Helen) Hayes Theater and has been nominated for the Best Actress Tony Award for her performance. In this semi-autobiographical work that spans six decades, Lange plays Phyllis, the less-than-enthusiastic mother to a gay son (played by Jim Parsons of The Big Bang Theory and Young Sheldon fame) and a lesbian daughter (played by previous Tony Award winner Celia Keenan-Bolger). Both Parsons and Keenan-Bolger are also Tony-nominated this year for their turns here.
Subtitled A Play in Five Evictions, Vogel's new work follows Phyllis and her children in the wake of her separation from their father. Between affordability and infestations by pests (gloriously visualized by projection designer Shawn Duan), they are evicted from their first three apartments in fairly quick succession. The trio gradually find their footing both collectively and individually but continue to experience ups and downs as the decades progress. Women's rights, LGBT rights, and the specter of AIDS all intervene along the way.
I was privileged to see Lange live on stage for the first time last weekend, even though this is not her first Broadway appearance and she already has one Tony Award to prove it. Like myself and many others in the Northeast recently, she was apparently grappling with some allergies and had to cough at times during the performance. (The next day's matinee performance was cancelled due to her health issues.) But Lange nonetheless imbued Phyllis with vitality, humor and dramatic vulnerability. Heck, she even dances more than once during Mother Play!
Director Tina Landau can be considered guilty of a few excesses in her staging. Most questionable is an approximately 10-minute scene in which Lange is alone onstage. I don't know how it was written by Vogel, but it is showy to say the least. The production's best scenes are when Lange, Parsons and Keenan-Bolger are all together... and accompanied by a chorus of dancing cockroaches!
Also causing a stir on Broadway currently is the Tony-nominated musical Illinoise. Inspired by the 2005 album by queer singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens, I exited a recent performance asking the same question some fellow critics have asked: Is it truly a musical? Or is a dance piece with choral accompaniment (and no singing principal cast members)?
Whatever it is as determined by award nominators, Illinoise does prove to be an affecting theatrical experience. Director-choreographer Justin Peck has conceived Stevens' album as an opportunity for a group of diverse young adults to come of age via dance around an on-stage campfire. At the center is the adorable Ricky Ubeda's Henry, a gay man tortured by his doomed first romance even as he is currently in a loving relationship with a more mature man. We've all been there, honey, and the album/production could have just as easily been titled Arizonoise or Indianaise, based on my personal experience.
Stevens' music, Peck's choreography, Brandon Stirling Baker's lighting design and Adam Rigg's naturalistic scenic design all work together effectively to create an engrossing, engaging tapestry. But is it really a musical? I tend to consider Illinoise more of a dance piece but still expect it to win a Tony or two come June 16th.
Reverend's Reviews:
Mother Play: B+
Illinoise: B
Reviews by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film and stage critic of Movie Dearest and Rage Monthly Magazine.
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