Theater Review: Night Mother

'Night, Mother is an exercise in minimalist playwrighting. Norman has stripped her play of several writing techniques normally used by writers to keep their audiences attention. The question that helps us learn as writers is: why do we, as audience members, continue listening even without these techniques? What holds our interest? The answers give us insight into where the backbone of a script really is and gives us a broader range of tools to use to keep the audience interested.

'Night, Mother is a play in which all the action is in the past. In the beginning we think that something might happen. Jessie is planning something, she has very specific items that she wants (a gun, trash bags, towels) but we don't understand what she needs them for. Norman manipulates us into feeling excited about what is going to happen, even though we don't quite no what it is. We are anticipating a journey that is just beginning.

It is quite a shock when we learn that the journey is actually ending. We are witnessing the last rather than the first step. As the play moves along, those initial feelings of anticipation stop and the further it progresses, the more Jessie's suicide feels inevitable. Norman feels no need to build up suspense, nor make us wonder how the play will end. Jessie's path to suicide so deliberate and so unwavering that when she leaves for her room with "'Night, Mother," no one should be surprised.

Yet even though we see where the play is headed, it holds our interest. We begin to anticipate, not the future, but the past. Jessie's decision obviously warrants a very troubled past, and it is her past we seek. We search for clues in the dialogue to help us understand what has happened. Norman teaches us that what happened in the past can keep us just as interested as what will happen in the future.

An important side lesson that Norman teaches us as playwrights is that we must choose a specific action in the scene that allows our characters to relate the past. Its difficult to write dialogue that explains the past without it seeming forced. After all, if the characters have already experienced the past and already know what happened, why would they be discussing it? 'Night Mother is a perfect example of a scene where reflection on the past by the characters is appropriate.

A second reason why our interest is held is that we can't make up our minds about Jessie. At the theater and in our lives, we have a desire to label people, put them in very specific categories. Norman purposely keeps Jessie undefined. On one hand, she seems like a real victim, her life is defined by the people around her: a husband who cheated on her, a son who stole, a needy and ungrateful mother, as well as her illness. Yet Jessie seems to passive, she never takes charge and she allows things to happen to herself. She seems partly to blame for the way her life turned out, because she never took charge of her own life.

It is Jessie's ambiguity that makes her final action equally as ambiguous. Is Jessie finally taking charger of her life? Has she finally done something for herself, without being influenced by other people? Is she stronger than she was? Or is suicide just another way of giving up? We are listening to the play for clues to help us answer these questions. They're difficult questions and different audience members will come up with different answers. In the end, it is these questions that will keep us in their seats.