Photo by Timothy Moder
Parenting can be difficult for everyone involved. Susan R. Rose and Joan Stein’s intimate stage show Motherhood Out Loud views this universal difficulty from the maternal perspective via a variety of different angles and written by a number of different writers. Next Act brings the show to its stage in a production featuring some captivating talent.
The program blends a series of narratives from pregnancy to infancy to toddler years and so on. (Intermission comes right around the first talk about sex.) There are moments that feel less endearing and insightful than others, but everyone in the ensemble has at least one really touching monologue. Deborah Staples is breathtakingly memorable as a mother relating a story of raising a boy who knows from a very young age that he’s actually a girl. Tami Workentin brings an endearing gravity to the story of a mother taking her autistic son out on his first date with a girl. Michelle Lopez-Rios renders the emotional complexity of a woman forced to explain to her children, herself and the world why one of her children was adopted.
As the one man in a show about mothers, Doug Jarecki plays to the edges of theme as a man working with a surrogate to conceive a child with his husband and a grown son parenting his aging mother. It’s a diverse and inclusive set of narratives. In lesser hands, the overall theme might have gotten lost. The overall momentum carries through quite beautifully thanks to talented director Laura Gordon and company.
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Motherhood Out Loud shows through May 7 at Next Act Theatre, 255 S. Water St. For tickets, visit nextact.org or call 414-278-0765.
