Preview Thoughts on Our Mother's Brief Affair

Last night was the happy occasion of seeing my first play for 2016!  I got my finances a little bit more in order over the holidays (having very generous parents who pay for everything when you're home really helps), and I got right onto TDF after I got back and picked up a few tickets (god bless TDF!).  I'm so gluttonous, I'm seeing three shows this week, then one a week for about a month or so.  I'm going to try to do better, but we'll see.  In my life, it's either feast or famine.

After having my purse searched twice before entering the theater (really?  they had to check my purse before I went into the box office to pick up my ticket and then again when I walked into the theater?  are they selling illegal substances in the lobby, because that's the only place something new could appear in my bag between the two spots.  but I digress.), I went to my very nice seat in the Samuel J Friedman theater: eighth row, on the aisle, for Richard Greenberg's new play Our Mother's Brief Affair.  Since the play doesn't open until next week, I won't go too crazy with the comments.  Though I do have a few things to mention...

It seems a teensy bit of a misnomer, I think, to call this Greenberg's new play, since it was previously done at South Coast Rep.  But, that's what all the materials say, so who am I to judge?  I saw Greenberg's The Assembled Parties at the Friedman a couple of seasons ago and I remember enjoying myself.  I went back and looked at my review - this section caught my eye:  "I appreciated it, I enjoyed it, I was even moved by a couple of speeches at the end, but I didn't LOVE it.  Too bad for me, I guess, but I just felt like there were so many unanswered questions.  Should there really be so much left for me to figure out?  Should so many things we believed from the first act really fly out the window in the second?  I don't know.  But these are the types of things that kept me from all-out loving this play."  Hmmmm.  That's really interesting because I feel almost EXACTLY the same about Our Mother's Brief Affair!  And now I'm wondering - is this a modus operandi for Richard Greenberg?  To set things up in the first act that get thrown out in the second?  Because life is precarious or something?  Or you can never know the truth?  I don't know.

Linda Lavin plays Anna, a mother who has been a difficult nut to crack for her children, who reveals big secrets about herself when she thinks she's on her deathbed.  Greg Keller and Kate Arrington are her bewildered adult children and John Procaccino plays a couple of pivotal characters in their lives.  The play is essentially a series of monologues, or asides to the audience, with occasional scenes played to illustrate previous asides.  So there was a lot of 'telling' with a little bit of 'showing.'  But then there was 'telling' INSIDE the 'showing', so things started to get a little frustrating for me.  At times I felt as if I were just watching them read the play to me instead of performing it. 

photo credit: Joan Marcus

That's not to say I didn't rather enjoy the story or the performances, I did.  I was intrigued in spite of myself, Greenberg's dialogue can be so witty and smart (maybe sometimes a little too smart?), and I found Linda Lavin to be stop-the-presses brilliant.  She found so many layers to this woman; we're never supposed to know if she's telling the truth or making up stories, but everything she said felt genuine and true to me.  At one point, she looks at her son and says (I paraphrase) "You're looking at me.  I've been waiting for you to look at me."  I completely knew what she meant - she was a woman trying to be seen as a woman by her children, not just as a mother.  That made sense and moved me, as did Anna's confession of the other event that had caused her so much guilt over her lifetime.  But I feel as if it was the actress moving me and not the play itself.  I could be wrong, I guess.  The other actors were also quite good, though obviously Lavin's role is the meatiest and most interesting.

I don't know.  The rest of the audience seemed to be eating the play up - every time there was mention of a town or landmark in Long Island, portions of the audience would titter.  And let's just say the average age of the audience made it easy for them to grasp the twist at the end of the first act, whereas I had to search my brain, listen to what the actors were telling me (with the houselights up - why?  most of the rest of the play was direct address that broke the fourth wall, so why was this bit different?  but I again digress.), and then do a little Googling during intermission.  Throwing some real-life drama into the world of the play was interesting, though.  Seat neighbor report:  the guy sitting next to me had a hard time sitting still, but during a monologue in the second act, he suddenly raised his sippy cup of wine in salute.  Uh, ok.  And there was some rather racist nonsense being discussed behind me that made me consider getting a sippy cup of wine of my own and then 'accidentally' spilling it on those lunkheads, but I stopped myself.

I also have to say that the physical production did not make itself known to me; the set, lights, costumes and sound just felt off.  Perhaps I just didn't 'get' what was going on, even though there was enjoyment to be had.  Spending time with Linda Lavin is always worthwhile and there were some moments to savor, so my first theatrical outing of the year was not a waste of time.  Plus, I got some of those little cupcakes at Baked by Melissa - I can highly recommend their winter special cupcake called Golden Cereal, with lots of graham cereal deliciousness.  Here's to 2106 and theatrical deliciousness!  :)