A part of the first annual Midwinter Madness Short Play Festival, “Mothers and Daughters” is a funny play on a serious matter. In addition to that, put into a brightly-colored homey setting and accompanied by touching songs that go along with the plot, it is a play any audience can relate to, as it explores both the gap between the generations of parents and their children and the ways families try to overcome what seems a precipice of misunderstanding.
Authored by James O’Connor and directed by Paula Riley (who also played the mother’s part, as Barbara Miluski-Lambert, who was supposed to play this role, was sick), the play reveals the conflict between a dying mother, Madge, and the daughter, Pauline (Emilie Soffe), who visits her. The mother is depressed; she is afraid of discovering that there is no life after death. She shares with Pauline, “I fear nothing more than going to hell. Nothing is very frightening.” The daughter replies, “Your melancholy drags me down. This is why I am the only one who comes to visit you.”
Pauline, in turn, complains to Madge that she was brought up as a loser, that her mother always pointed out her worst traits, while favoring her other daughter, Louise, who is now happily married and doesn’t come to visit Madge. After expressing everything they have been suppressing for a while, mother and daughter shed tears, hug each other, thus resolving the conflict.
With the plot reduced to one long conversation, walking back and forth along the room and singing, the true fascination of the play is its humor. Even the saddest confessions of both women are sweetened by a joke or a funny phrase. “I’d get me one of those Indian men,” says Madge. “Many of them are doctors. They are gentlemen; they look like normal (unlike American ones) doctors, with a suit and dress shoes, and they don’t call you by your first name.”
Refreshing as the play’s humor, the setting stands out as well. There are not too many objects on the stage, but they all create homey atmosphere and separate the characters from each other. The mother lies in her armchair, and the daughter comforts her with a blanket impressing with diversity of colors. Pauline herself sits in another armchair, far from where her mom is, which makes the audience feel that these two women are not quite connected, even though they are in the same room and talking to each other.
The gap between the mother and the daughter is also stressed by their appearance. Madge wears her robe with slippers, while Pauline is in a business suit. At this point, they represent both different generations and separate worlds, relaxed and maybe even boring atmosphere of home and busy life of a woman pursuing her career. Indeed, when they talk, the viewers understand that they belong to different realities.
And still, despite all their differences, they are united by the love they feel for one another, so the audience leaves the play with an easy feeling that they will work it out somehow, especially after that hug at the end, and the conclusion both women agree upon, “So is it hell for Louise and heaven for us?”
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