THE HANGOVER REPORT – Andy Bragen’s autobiographical NOTES ON MY MOTHER’S DECLINE takes objectivism to a punishing extreme

Andy Bragen's "Notes on My Mother's Decline" at the Fourth Street Theatre, courtesy of PlayCo and NYTW's Next Door programming. Photo by Julieta Cervantes.

Caroline Lagerfelt and Ari Fliakos in Andy Bragen’s “Notes on My Mother’s Decline” at the Fourth Street Theatre, courtesy of PlayCo and NYTW’s Next Door programming. Photo by Julieta Cervantes.

Last weekend at the Fourth Street Theatre in the East Village, I caught Andy Bragen’s autobiographical two-hander Notes on My Mother’s Decline, courtesy of the Play Company (or “PlayCo”) and New York Theatre Workshop’s Next Door programming. Mr. Bragen’s new play is just what it professes to be – a series of staged notes documenting the physical and mental decline of the playwright’s mother.

It’s not an easy subject, and the playwright doesn’t make it easier for the audience. In Notes on My Mother’s Decline, Mr. Bragen takes cold-blooded objectivism to a punishing extreme. Even at only 75-minutes, the play feels brutally long to be exposed to such incessantly unemotional availability (the only relief comes during the play’s baffling coda). Why tell this particular story if only to be disinterested, even mean-spirited? Is it perhaps to highlight the playwright’s continued inability to emotionally process his mother’s demise and death?

Regardless of my misgivings and/or misunderstanding regarding Mr. Bragen’s play, there’s no denying the sleekness of its staging by Knud Adams. In recent years, Mr. Adams has emerged as a director to watch out for. What he brings to the table is an astute eye for theatricality, as well as the talent for creating striking visual landscapes onstage (the austere all-white set is by Marsha Ginsberg). The great actress Caroline Lagerfelt gives a vivacious performance as a woman desperately grasping for life in the face of impending death. As her son, Ari Fliakos (as Mr. Bragen’s stand-in) poses dispassionate, passionately.

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NOTES ON MY MOTHER’S DECLINE
Off-Broadway, Play
The Play Company / New York Theatre Workshop’s Next Door / Fourth Street Theatre
1 hour, 15 minutes (without an intermission)
Through October 27

Categories: Off-Broadway, Theater

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