‘night, Mother

Directed by Jan Macintryre
Produced by Jean Freer

The Armidale Playhouse – March 1991

By Marsha Norman

DIRECTOR'S NOTE

First presented on Broadway in March 1983, 'night other was nominated for a Tony Award as well as winning the Pulitzer Prize for drama. The play takes place in a relatively new house on a country road. Set in the present, it explores the complexity of family relationships through a private night of conversation between a mother and daughter. In the process, the audience witnesses their playing out of the issues of: bonding; separation; self; autonomy, and control with uncompromising honesty, as Jessie explains her decision to kill herself.

Marsha Norman has been compared to Samuel Beckett, to Chekhov and to Pinter. Her four major plays offer a variety of portraits of mother and child; focus on survival and waiting, with humour underscoring pain, and with her primary theme being that of
leave-taking. "There comes a moment when we have to release our parents from our expectations", she says, describing 'night Mother as "a great cleaning out of your pockets".

Not without humour, the play employs simplicity of dialogue, the use of real time progression, of confession and of the unreliability of truth. Is suicide the way out, or the way in, for Jessie?

CAST

Thelma Cates: Alanna Mason
Jessie Cates: Jan Macintyre

CREW

Director: Jan Macintyre
Producer: Jean Freer
Stage Manager: Betty Hall
Set Design & Construction: Barbara Finch
Props/Costumes: Cast, Crew & Friends
Light/Sound: Marianne Vickery
Poster/Cover Design: Pinnacle Promotions
Programme: Anne Abbott

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Delmar Parker Optometrist, Imagery Hair Salon, Spark & Co, Thoms Retravision, Seve Hoare, David Milne, Peta Abbott, Rupert Hall, Michael Vickery, ProMac Training Services