Theatre in Review: A Mother (Baryshnikov Arts Center)

	The cast of A Mother Photo: Maria Baranova

While I can't swear this is the first production to merge Bertolt Brecht with the disco anthem "Funkytown," I'd put good money on it. With A Mother, this is only the beginning. Think of it as a cooking show starring Jessica Hecht, who pours a variety of influences -- the German playwright, Broadway musicals, discotastic tunes, aquacades, and scenes from the Miami diaspora of the 1960s and 1970s -- into the Mixmaster, creating a savory cultural casserole. It is also food for thought: Conceived by Hecht and Neena Beber and written by Beber, it is an amusing and touching coming-of-age memoir paired with a drama about racism; seen through multiple filters and informed by various staging ideas, it is designed to wrestle with the age-old, possibly unanswerable question: Can theatre change the world?

A Mother is assembled from so many narrative threads, it's a marvel that Beber and Hecht can keep track of them. There's the teenage Jess, hanging with her elderly grandparents in 1979 Miami, dining at the legendary deli Wolfie's, and sneaking into discos, where she meets Daryl, the boyfriend of her dreams. There are her summers at theatre-oriented Camp Sholem Aleichem, where Michelle, the faculty rebel, schools her kids in the importance of the alienation effect. ("You can't do Paint Your Wagon until you get Brecht under your belt," she barks at them.) Michelle introduces them to The Mother, Brecht's drama about a Russian peasant woman who gets drawn into her son's labor organizing activities, becoming radicalized when he is killed. But hang on; soon, The Mother morphs into a drama about Arthur Lee McDuffie, a real-life Black man, who, minding his own business, is beaten and murdered by a dozen cops. Just to confirm the play's Mobius strip construction, this miscarriage of justice happens in Miami in the summer of 1979.

Perhaps because of the Brechtian influence, the moment arrives when members of the cast question the veracity of the scenes supposedly from Hecht's youth; nevertheless, they have a kooky, disarming ring of truth. Her grandparents live in The Saxony Apartments, "aka the shtetl-by-the-sea," and "a glatt kosher residency somehow named after a historic region of Germany." She also delves into the city's antisemitic past, when hotel brochures advertised "Always a view, never a Jew." Daryl, who is Black, lives in Liberty City, a neighborhood that sounds romantic to Jess, unaware that it is a middle-class neighborhood turned ghetto. And when Jess breaks the news about Daryl to her grandparents, her grandfather mutters, "Oy, a broch," which, she notes, is "Yiddish for a curse, a plague, a disaster, but said with the same intonation whether there's been another pogrom, or you've burnt the brisket."

Meanwhile, onstage at the Baryshnikov Center, Hecht and the company are trying to stage The Mother, but they keep getting tangled in details about early twentieth-century Russia. (How much is a kopeck worth in American currency? You mean you don't know?) When a couple of actors balk at the idea of glorifying the revolution that led to Stalin, the work of adapting The Mother begins. (As someone notes, it is one of Brecht's "learning plays," meant to be retooled to specific circumstances.) This cues the story of McDuffie, a pillar of his community, whose crime is best described as riding a motorcycle while Black. A Mother is especially acute about the legal shenanigans around the trial of McDuffie's killers, which was hotwired to produce a predetermined outcome. Even given her romance with Daryl, Jess remains oblivious to the unfolding injustice: When the verdict arrives, she is in Connecticut (her home state), practicing a water ballet in the group The Aquabelles.

A Mother often whipsaws in several directions at once, but its intent is clear. Just as Brecht's play is the story of a working-class woman's tutelage in a corrupt class system, A Mother details Jess' political and sentimental education, a process that, she notes, is ongoing: Late in the evening, she recalls the summer of 2020, when, now a mother herself, she takes part in at Black Lives Matter demonstration. Of course, she ends up at Strand Books, staring at a copy of Brecht and trying to figure out her next move. There's something especially captivating about Hecht -- quite possibly the most skilled high-comedy technician of her generation -- wondering about theatre and its power to effect change. It's worth noting that she recently starred in Eureka Day, a riotous comedy that surgically probed the anti-vaccine hysteria that has infected contemporary society; the lady knows the territory.

There's one issue with A Mother, and it is prominent enough to be a problem: At the moment, Beber seems to be looking for an ending, piling one possibility on another. What is wanted, I think, is some kind of coup that pulls everything together. As it stands, the last ten minutes or so drag noticeably; each of the various wrap-up moments is charming on its own; together, they sap the play's momentum. This is its world premiere, and it's not too late to re-examine this aspect before it moves on, as it should, to other venues.

Still, this is a largely enjoyable, highly original theatrical event. The director, Maria Mileaf, deftly guides the action through multiple levels of memory and artifice, working with a nimble cast. The charismatic Fergie L. Phillipe, a rising name soon to be seen in Encores' revival of Wonderful Town, is a marvelous Daryl, making us understand the thrill of Jess' first love. The one-named Portia lends her imposing presence and powerful voice in several roles, including a riveting rendition of "Wade in the Water," paired with a sung Kaddish prayer. Delilah Napier and Zane Pais are good as the most skeptical members of the company.

Also, Neil Patel's set includes some very Brechtian curtains plus an impressive mirror ball. Matthew Richards' lighting design shifts from disco glitter to stark washes. Karen Boyer's costumes have the right rehearsal room feel. Nick T. Moore's sound design blends subtle amplification with effects like birdsong, sirens, and smashing glass.

A Mother ends with Jess arriving in New York, where her real life begins. It's intriguing to see how the questions that shaped her youth are still so much with her. For most of its running time, Beber's play contemplates them with no small amount of wit and grace. Brecht might be confounded by what a bunch of Americans have made of his play. Then again, he might appreciate their candor and insight.--David Barbour