Theatre in Review: Motherhood Out Loud (Primary Stages/59E59)

	Mary Bacon, Randy Graff, and Saidah Arrika Eulona. Photo: James Leynse

There's not much that doesn't get said in Motherhood Out Loud, a fine, friendly, and funny examination of the many ages of maternity. Taking a leaf from the playbook established by the long-running Love, Loss, and What I Wore, Susan Rose and Joan Stein have assembled a cross-section of (mostly) women writers who examine the joys and pains of labor, two-in-the-morning feedings, behavioral anomalies, sex education, blended families, surrogates, and other facts of contemporary life.

The results are usually amusing and, often enough, there's an insight that's sufficiently surprising to make you realize that there's more going on here than trolling for easy laughs. As expected, there are gags about the trauma of giving birth ("Where the fuck is the Jack Daniels?" one maternity ward occupant cries out in alarm) and the terrible realization that occurs when you arrive home with the offspring, only to realize that he or she is yours for the next 18 years or so. ("My baby is a sleep terrorist," declares one exhausted parent, who goes on to detail the horrifying fact that, about six months in, the babe forgets everything that he or she has learned about sleep, reverting to the habit of waking up every two hours.) Such moments elicit shock-of-recognition laughs from the many members of the audience who have been there, and have the scars to prove it.

Other pieces feature spikier, harder-earned insights tied to graceful turns of phrase. "You can age ten years on one of my mother's goodbyes," comments one young woman, adding that the only real advice passed down to her was "God favors your child over you." "I love my kid, but sometimes I wish we'd met under different circumstances," remarks another, expressing an ambivalence that is probably more common than it first appears. Facing the prospect of acquiring a daughter-in-law, a bemused matron admits, "I don't think I like her, but I want her to love me."

In fact, one of the best things about this entertainment is how, in a fast and breezy 90 minutes, the committee of authors is able to touch on so many different aspects of the maternal experience. All of the sketches are handled with remarkable dexterity by a quartet of fine actors under the bright and keenly observant direction of Lisa Peterson. Mary Bacon excels both as a new, and somewhat reluctant, recruit to the parenting game, trying and failing to bond with a pair of super-mommies in the park, and as a watchful mother presiding over her autistic son's first date. Saidah Arrika Ekulona is convincing both as a Muslim matron -- living in Las Vegas, no less -- who must explain the mysteries of menstruation to her daughter, and as the mother of a soldier in Iraq, who goes to extreme lengths to keep her fears for his safety at bay. Randy Graff offers an especially acute pair of character studies, as a woman realizing that she's in it for the long haul when her little boy announces that he wants to dress up as Queen Esther for a Purim celebration, and as a second wife who comes to realize, in bittersweet fashion, that there are limits to her relationship with her stepdaughters. Representing the male perspective is James Lecesne, who is touching, both as a gay man recalling the hoops he and his partner had to jump through to have a child, and as a middle-aged man facing the onset of his mother's dementia.

It's never easy to design one of these omnibus evenings, but Peterson has assembled a smart design team. Rachel Hauck's multiple-panel set has a Mondrian look at first, but it soon becomes a fine display surface for Jan Hartley's projections, many of which have the quality of silkscreen images, and Emily Hubley's whimsical animations of chalk-line drawings. Christopher Kuhl's lighting, David C. Woolard's costumes, and Jill BC DuBoff's sound design are all as slick and professional as you could possibly want.

Alternately tender and tough-minded, Motherhood Out Loud is far more insightful than it needs to be. Everyone involved could have settled for a few laughter-and-tears homilies, and they would have probably been home free at the box office. To their credit, they're willing to dig deeper; the result is an entertainment that has something to say to everyone who has ever been in that most essential and impossible of relationships, that of mother and child.--David Barbour