‘night, Mother

Written by Marsha Norman | Directed by Dan Shanahan

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for drama, ‘night, Mother is as “artfully designed as a sonata, rising in each dramatic movement until it arrives at its inevitable destination.” (Mel Gussow, The New York Times Magazine) This inevitable destination is revealed in the early stages of what proves to be a quietly horrific evening for the Mother, as she learns that her daughter will kill herself before the evening is through. The Mother attempts to exert her usual control and manipulative tactics to prevent the daughter from fulfilling her fatal act. Over the course of the evening we gain insight into why the daughter wishes to make her exit from the entanglement of the house and of her life.The Mother, who has cultivated the emotional disintegration of her daughter, acts as a catalyst for the misery and oppression endured by both women. As the bleakness of the daughter’s situation settles, she carefully refills candy dishes, lines her bedroom walls with plastic, cleans her gun and straightens the refrigerator before saying, “‘night, Mother.”