| Oh well. Sad to say but Vogel’s biographical memory play is at once threadbare, peculiar, sentimental, and slight. THE MOTHER PLAY invites comparisons to many other plays, including THE GLASS MENAGERIE and Vogel’s own early play, THE BALTIMORE WALTZ, both of which are far better, and also McNally’s MOTHERS AND SONS which is about as bad. Of course it’s nice to see Jessica Lange, who surely knows her way around a narcissistic mother trope, but Jim Parsons is cloying as ever. That leaves Celia Keenan-Bolger, playing Vogel basically, with the task of keeping this patchy farrago together. She doesn’t. Finally, there’s a bizarre preoccupation with roaches—dancing no less—throughout and an entirely unnecessary prolonged silent acting exercise for Lange plopped in the middle. THE MOTHER PLAY covers a lot of ground and, regrettably, gets nowhere surprising. |
