Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – The Wooster Group deconstructs Brecht’s THE MOTHER with playful precision

• By drediman
• November 15, 2021
• No Comments

Over the years, New York has been home to a long list of storied avant-garde theater companies. Arguably, The Wooster Group – with its distinctive multi-media aesthetic and proclivity towards staging stimulating and experimental adaptations of classic works – ranks among the most well known of the bunch. This fall, the Soho-based company returned to in-person performance with its production of Bertolt Brecht’s The Mother, which is current enjoying an extended run at The Performing Garage, the company’s longtime downtown home base.

Set in turn-of-the-century Russia, The Mother (written by Brecht as a so-called “learning play” to educate its audiences via theatrical storytelling) tells the fictitious story of a poor woman whose intense devotion to her son leads her to become a key member in the Communist Party. Like many of the theater company’s ‘s previous offerings, the production thoroughly deconstructs Brecht’s play and puts it back together in a way that comments on the work itself as an historical artifact – often times in a manner that’s confounding. Thankfully, The Mother also has the benefit of being playfully experimental, which augments some of the production’s more outlandish choices. For example, since roughly half the show is lip-synced, it’s amusing to try to figure out whether the actors are actually speaking at any given moment.

The cast – led by the subtly droll Kate Valk in the title role – commit to a melodramatic style of acting that veers between tongue-in-cheek and antiseptic. But despite the apparent fun the cast has with the text, there’s tremendous rigor and discipline that underpins the performances. As typical of The Wooster Group, the level of precision and calibration involved in pulling off a production like The Mother merits special mention and attention (kudos to director Elizabeth LeCompte).

RECOMMENDED

THE MOTHER
Off-Broadway, Play
The Wooster Group
1 hour, 30 minutes (without an intermission)
Through November 20