Don’t Ask “Dot”
About “Our Mother’s
Brief Affair.”
by TONY VELLELA
It’s a certainty that Kander and Ebb did not have Dot and Anna in mind when they penned “Two Ladies” for “Cabaret,” in 1967. But one thing is certain – the title characters in “Dot,” at off-Broadway’s Vineyard Theatre, and in “Our Mother’s Brief Affair,” at Broadway’s Friedman Theatre, could both have lived at that time.
Relatively new “Dot” playwright Colman Domingo sets his story in present-day West Philadelphia, where three millenial-age children take different approaches to how their beloved, and still-lively mother is functioning as she develops the early stages of dementia. Responsibly-motivated Shelly,a lawyer, still resides near the family home where their mother still lives. Struggling music journalist Donnie now co-habits with his husband in New York City. And the youngest, Averie, lives in Shelly’s basement, indulging in over-the-top behavior as she nurses an acting fantasy. On the days before Christmas, Shelly insists on forcing her siblings to take more of an active role in caring for Mom.
Family dramas that find tension relief with comedy moments often fail to present the serious side of their stories. Yet Domingo manages to craft all those moments when Dotty’s mind leaves the present, and takes up residence in the past, with the seriousness they demand. Hers is a vivid memory bank, which makes her conversational exchanges with her children, with Donnie’s loving husband Adam, with Kazakhstani home care worker Fidel, and with family friend Jackie, all provide the broader picture of what this household once was, and for all of them, still does – a safe, congenial, laughter-bound home for all who enter.
As eldest daughter Shelly, a lawyer whose life has been taken over by the demands of looking after her mother’s welfare, Sharon Washington presents a character at her wit’s end. When we first meet her and Dot in the bright family kitchen, the daughter is frantically trying to fry eggs for her mother’s breakfast, maneuver her mother into signing much-needed power of attorney papers, and getting the lady to take her pills. It’s a scenario that is just short of slapstick, and one does wonder how these tasks could so totally defeat her. What Domingo has done, though, is depict the shared characteristics of mother & daughter – they both refuse to have events defeat them. A less strong mother might not have reared a so-strong daughter.
Gay son Donnie also inherits some of his mother’s traits, namely a desire to foster a family, a goal not fully shared by his husband. Their internal relationship issues do surface from time to time, clouding the real agenda – caring for Dot – that should be front and center during their visit. Stephen Conrad Moore’s Donnie, and Colin Hanlon’s Adam stick to their assigned roles as circumstantial characters, even when the presence of Donnie’s high school sweetheart Jackie [a thoroughly compelling Finnerty Steeves] muddies up the story lines, as she reveals her unplanned pregnancy by a married man. It’s easy to see why Jackie would seek refuge in this family, which must have been one of the more welcoming residences on the block decades ago.
Come-back lines, sight gags, witty retorts and plays on words pepper the script, in the manner of early Neil Simon. The play’s internal structure follows the reliable connect-the-dots format that defined comedy vehicles, on stage and in some television sitcoms of the mid-sixties era, minus any dramatic elements . Two aspects of “Dot” separate it from those works: the marquee name attached to this production belongs not to the stars, or the playwright, but to the director, Susan Stroman, making her entry smoothly as a director of a straight play, and demonstrating that her Tony Awards for many musicals do not limit her abilities. The second aspect of “Dot” that distinguishes it from comedies of years past is the family’s racial make-up. As an African-American family dealing with the recurring assaults of dementia that keep visiting Dot, it makes clear that her condition, and the way her family and friends deal with it, know no racial boundaries. Giving us Dotty’s life-long vigor and forceful refusal to let the memory loss define her, Marjorie Johnson captures the whole person, who she is now, and who she has always been, in a performance that ranks among the season’s most memorable.
The other ‘lady’ treading the boards now has the opposite relationship with the subject of memory. In Richard Greenberg’s surprisingly satisfying “Our Mother’s Brief Affair,” Linda Lavin’s Anna insists that her Long Island Jewish identity holds more secrets than her two adult children ever knew, or seemingly care to know about. They are rightly suspicious that Anna’s tales of forbidden liaisons with a dangerous cohort when her children were in their teens is nothing more than a product of incipient Alzheimer’s. She insists otherwise.
Greenberg, an acclaimed accomplished wordsmith, again shows off his talents with character creation, giving Anna two children whose lives smack of details that enrich the story – her boy Seth [a solid Greg Keller] is a gay New York obituary writer, and his sister Abby [charming Kate Arrington] is raising a daughter with her girlfriend, and works as a librarian in California. Because both children deal in life stories in one way or another, their mother seems inclined to punch up her own life story while she still has the chance. Why relate this dark chapter now, she is asked. “I wanted to be known,” she replies, matter-of-factly. Do her riotously randy rendezvous retellings reflect reality? Does it matter?
Greenberg has given us a great gift – another role that provides Lavin with an opportunity to display her uncanny sense of comic timing. Hers is a talent still uncommon – it echoes the genius of Nancy Walker on film, or Imogene Coca on television – when almost any half-decent humorous script provides a launching pad for these women to soar. It’s timing, timing, timing, and you can witness it also in carriage as well as speech – see Lavin move about with carefully-metered steps, when not even four-inch heels can alter her perfect pacing. Director Lynn Meadow seems to have found Greenberg’s tailoring of the daughter’s character to show how she is her mother’s child – whining and all. This is a comedy master class for any young woman seeking to make a name for herself as an actress able to tackle comic roles. For the rest of us, it’s simply a gift.
Both “Dot” and “Our Mother’s Brief Affair” break no new ground when it comes to writing style. With very few alterations, you could be told they were revivals of forty-year-old plays and believe it. But at a time when experimenting with form results in lack of substance, they are welcome offerings indeed.
AfterPlay
Acclaimed poet and writer Jose Roldan, Jr. brings his captivating solo show “Father, Forgive Me, For I Have Sinned” back to the Nuyorican Poets Cafe through the end of March. The award-winning solo show chronicles Roldan’s devastating journey of self-discovery as a gay male in a Latino culture in The Bronx in the 1980’s, and merits a visit downtown. The Cafe’s website has details . . . now for something entirely different downtown, and not even in the category of ‘theatre,’ the South Street Seaport Museum opens a fascinating exhibit of artifacts in its main lobby, at 12 Fulton Street, on March 17. Google the South Street Seaport for details . . . marrying Broadway and the Bard, veteran stage actor Len Cariou performs an evening of Shakespeare and song at the Lion Theatre on Theatre Row. Performances continue until March 6.
On Book
It’s indeed noteworthy that Colman Domingo’s “Dot” relies not at all on the racial heritage of its central characters as any kind of important element in the play’s story line. To gauge how some of the best-known plays by African Americans handled their topics in the period between 1935 and the end of the last century, consult “Black Theatre USA,” from the Free Press, compiled by James V. Hatch and Ted Shine … and to delve deeper into the world of the Bard, check out “That Man Shakespeare,” by David Ellis. Subtitled “An Icon of Modern Culture,” this comprehensive tome provides a thorough overview of the man and his lasting influence on literature for the ages . . . and to prepare yourself for the current revival of Eugene O’Neill’s
“Hughie,” find it with several other shorter works from the legendary playwright in “Collected Shorter Plays,” from Yale University Press, featuring an introduction by Robert Brustein.
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TONY VELLELA wrote and produced the PBS series about theatre “Character Studies.” His New York International Fringe Festival Best Play winner “Admissions” is published by Playscripts. His play “Maisie and Grover Go to the Theatre,” is published by ArtAge Press. He has written about the performing arts for Life Magazine, Dramatics magazine, the Christian Science Monitor, Reader’s Digest, Parade and dozens of other publications during a forty-year journalism career. He currently teaches theatre sessions at the 92nd St. Y. His new play “Labor Days,” is in pre-production.
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