Don’t be surprised if you find yourself laughing at ‘Well’ with that joyful sense of recognition you’ve only experienced at a stand-up gig. Lisa Kron is an American comic memoirist and wrote this play about her relationship with her mother and originally starred in it herself. You could spend an evening listening to her (or rather, ‘Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps’ actor Natalie Casey, who takes Kron’s place here with total commitment and ease) reminisce generously about childhood humiliations. But Kron has a more pressing agenda.
Addressing the audience with drama-grad terminology and a stack of prompt cards, Lisa-the-character announces that this is a play about ‘issues of illness and wellness’. Her mother, Ann, has been ill for as long as Lisa can remember. She’s trying to understand why her own ‘allergies’ disappeared when she got a sex life and learnt to accept her own body, while her mother is still confined to a La-Z-Boy recliner – and why a woman, whose commitment to racial integration led to the betterment of their whole neighbourhood, has been unable to heal herself.
For this ‘theatrical exploration’, Lisa’s mother (and the corner of the cosy living room in Michigan which always contains her) have been transported to the theatre – pink bed-socks, candle-snuffer collection and all. A picture of radiant lethargy, Sarah Miles’s Ann smiles patiently and encouragingly up at her daughter as Lisa struggles to orchestrate the meta-theatrical layers of her play. But soon she is questioning the accuracy of plot details, and the extras Lisa has hired are abandoning their lines to bathe in her maternal attentions.
Always one step ahead of its audience’s reactions, this is fantastic theatre, full of warmth and wisdom and done complete justice by an exceptionally natural cast. The twist in the ending, though, is one frame too far.
