April 11-13

Starring

Robin and Tess Haynie

Directed by Dennis Gilmore

 

Marcia Norman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning ‘night, Mother is a searing portrait of a family in crisis, starring two truly gifted actresses, Tess Haynie and Robin Haynie.

It’s a normal Saturday evening in the Cates’s home where mother and daughter, Thelma and Jessie, live out a rather mundane, humdrum existence.  As the play starts, Mama is cataloguing the stock of sweets which need replenishing.  She seems happy enough, but her repetitive world is about to be painfully shattered.  For her daughter Jessie has made a monumental decision—she is going to kill herself.  As she casually asks the whereabouts of her father’s revolver, there’s a sense of disquiet about what might be about to happen.  But it’s not until Jessie makes her intentions explicit that the alarm bells ring as we understand this is going to be a Saturday night like no other, because at the end of it, Jessie will be dead. As the pieces of this jig-saw snap into place, we realize that Jessie has planned her demise in meticulous detail—she’s even had her mother’s dress cleaned ready for the funeral, and has a box of ordinary things to bequeath to her mother and the rest of the family.  Even so, Norman’s script manages to keep us guessing as to the final outcome—or maybe its just our hope that Jessie’s plans will be thwarted.

‘night, Mother opens in the Black Box April 11 and runs the 11th & 12th at 7:30pm and April 13 at 2pm.  Call 675-3908 for reservations.