In Mother Play, Pulitzer Prize-winner Paula Vogel takes audiences on a quietly powerful and deeply affecting look at family, memory and resilience with striking resonance.
In this finely tuned production directed by Lee Lewis, Vogel’s semi-autobiographical traces the turbulent lives of the Herman family as they navigate decades marked by loss, displacement and unspoken pain.
At the heart of the production is Sigrid Thornton, who delivers a ferocious and heartbreaking performance as Phyllis Herman, a mother hardened by circumstance, scraping together dignity as she tries, often unsuccessfully, to shield her children from the ravages of poverty, instability and disappointment.
Thornton plays Phyllis with a taut mix of brittle pride and aching vulnerability, never allowing the audience the comfort of easy judgement. Her portrayal is deeply lived-in, shifting seamlessly between sardonic humour and devastating pathos, especially in the play’s final moments.
Yael Stone serves as a kind of narrator and emotional anchor, delivering a multi-layered and soul-baring performance. Walking the tightrope between affection and disillusionment with stunning control, Stone embodies a woman torn between loyalty to her mother and the pressing need to carve out her own life.
Ash Flanders brings charm, wit, and aching vulnerability to Carl Herman, the sensitive and artistic brother struggling with identity and rejection in a time when the world was far less forgiving.
Flanders’ performance is both disarmingly funny and profoundly moving, particularly in scenes of tenderness with Stone, where the bond between siblings is rendered with touching beauty.
Director Lee Lewis handles the shifting timeline and memory-driven structure with grace. On the whole, scenes flow in and out like recollections, fractured, layered and often contradictory.
The emotional rhythm allows the text’s complex themes of abandonment, queerness, economic fragility, and generational trauma to resonate without ever feeling forced or didactic.
Christina Smith’s set design is minimal yet effective. The use of packing boxes, shifting furniture and sparse domestic elements creates a sense of impermanence, lives in constant motion, never fully settled. Through sharply tailored, era-appropriate outfits, Smith captures Phyllis’s blend of resilience and vulnerability. The evolving wardrobes of Martha and Carl subtly track their growth and changing self-perceptions through the passage of time and social aspirations.
Niklas Pajanti’s lighting marks transitions in time and tone, deftly shifting between moments of stark reality and hazy memory, while Kelly Ryall’s quirky layered sound design adds unexpected texture and playful juxtapositions, occasionally playful, occasionally haunting.
Raw, humorous and quietly profound, Mother Play is a meditation on the fragile, fleeting nature of home, family, and love, and a testament to the impermanence that can define our lives and relationships.
Mother Play
Southbank Theatre – The Sumner, Southbank Boulevard, Southbank
Performance: Friday 4 July 2025
Season continues to 9 August 2025
Information and Bookings: www.mtc.com.au
Images: Sigrid Thornton in Mother Play – photo by Brett Boardman | Ash Flanders, Sigrid Thornton and Yael Stone in Mother Play – photo by Brett Boardman
Review: Rohan Shearn