Mother Play: A Play in Five Evictions review

Lange exudes a timeless glamour that is fitting for Phyllis. Always elegant and impeccably dressed, even for a funeral, she chides her kids on their diction and presentation. Lange reveals both the vivacious Phyllis and five-martinis toxic Phyllis who is doing lifelong damage to her kids. She has the range to do this showier work, including an emotionally freeing dance to Disco Inferno with Carl. Then we watch her scarring them in real time as she venomously articulates all her regrets – though an extended sequence, intended to demonstrate how Phyllis copes with the emptiness of her life and fidgets around her apartment in small detail, lacks impact.

With a set made up of 1960s furniture, vintage glass ceiling lights and Chanel suits or a DVF wrap-dress for Phyllis’ costumes, we get a clear impression of the period setting. The furniture in the apartment is on wheeled platforms that get reconfigured and shifted around by the cast in a smart nod to the packing and unpacking of all the moves, even if a neon stage-framing effect seems incongruous.

Vogel’s play has some zingers for Carl, and more levity comes from visual gags, among them video designer Shawn Duan’s projections of cha-cha-ing cockroaches or the seemingly infinite items that their mother can pull from her purse. The humour is welcome, considering the heaviness of the material; but the spectacle is inconsistently used, so that it ultimately feels tacked on to this sometimes puzzling universe.