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(All-caps MOTHER baseball caps are available for purchase at the Hayes Theater.)
That cleverness, however, has a domineering quality.
They start out in a custodial sub-basement unit with Carl assigned to take out the buildings trash.
Her script assembles the contradictions that make up her mother, but it doesnt provide a route through them.
Good material not yet fully refined and processed.
Phyllis turns on Carl when she discovers the truth of his sexuality, then on Martha.
She has a late-in-life turn to crystal-ball fortune telling.
Theands of her character pile up without athereforeto bring us somewhere new.
Carl, whom Vogel has also written about in her elegyThe Baltimore Waltz, grows up fast and hyperliterate.
Parsons, especially, struggles to get under Carls skin.
But it would be nice to see her just get to play an adult.
As Phyllis, Lange has to carry the play, which she manages to do in fits and starts.
What she can do is cast a spell.
And often, Phyllis has is just that kind of posture.
Gay sons and mothers!
Martha says, exasperated by Phylliss hold on Carl.
Or some such bullshit.
Vogels characters are good at that too good.
In another too-on-the-nose exchange, Carl announces to Martha that its over, isnt it?
Childhood, he says.
Dont you want to unpack that?
Mother Playis at the Hayes Theater.
