‘Mother Play: A Play in Five Evictions @ Uptown Players
Photos by Mike Morgan Photography
—Martha Heimberg
Giving birth to an offspring, we’ve learned from grade school on, automatically triggers a mothering instinct in all creatures great and small, a compulsion to love and nurture the baby (colt, kid, cub, calf, fledgling) into independence and adulthood. But that’s definitely not the selfish, manipulative mom portrayed in Paula Vogel’s semi-autobiographical drama Mother Play: A Play in Five Evictions, having its regional premiere with Uptown Players (performing on Theatre Three’s intimate arena stage).
The show is directed with warm wit and musically-cued pacing by Cheryl Denson. The emotional turmoil of the characters, and their coming to terms with each other as a family, are sometimes wrenching, but the tone never descends to melodrama. Not in this director’s playbook.
The story, spanning four decades and five moves in suburban Baltimore (near D.C.) from 1962 to the present, follows hard-drinking single mom Phyllis—played with commanding style and compelling charm by Cara Statham Serber—and her gay teenage children, both making the best of it, packing and unpacking and shoving furniture around, while fixing mom her fourth martini and lighting her cigarettes. After all, it’s not easy working in the secretary pool at the U.S. Post Office to make ends meet after “your son-of-a-bitch father abandoned us.” Whew. Quick, fifth martini coming up. Also, better squash those roaches in the kitchen.
The show opens with adult Martha (a vulnerable, resilient Leslie Marie Collins) telling the audience that the single box she’s packing up contains “all the stuff” her brother left behind after his last move. when he died of AIDS. She steps quickly into the past as her 14-year-old schoolgirl self, remembering how she and 16-year-old brother Carl (Ryan Michael Friedman, convincing as a swishy teenager, then raw and emotional as a man hungry for sexual release) struggled to keep each other buoyed up in their game efforts to appease their bitter, demanding mother. As she settles herself into yet another pest-infested apartment, we see that Phyllis favors her handsome son and his award-winning debating skills, but shunts Martha off to the kitchen to cook and clean.
Serber’s powerhouse performance anchors the 100-minute show, played with no intermission. Svelte and posture-perfect, pissed-off Phyllis strolls around the family’s latest digs projecting a smiling confidence (fueled by gin and sheer fury) while listening to Gershwin and Cole Porter. When she’s not toiling at the post office, she shops thrift stores, and proudly models the latest second-hand Chanel jacket or Dior suit.
In one telling scene, Phyllis dons a gorgeous silk dressing gown, puts on matching slippers, removes her fancy wig, and prepares a meal to enjoy in her favorite company—herself. Kudos to costume designer Suzi Cranford, who also outfits the children as they grow out of their kid clothes and into smart adult fashion.
While Phyllis batters them with her expectations of what they must become, the bond between brother and sister grows. Carl dresses Martha up in his own trousers and shirts to look like “a butch dyke”—giving her a way to protect herself after a punk boy on the bus attacks her. We all enjoy a welcome laugh in a scene where Martha tries to “walk like a lady” because her mother has detected a male gait.
The warmth of Mother Play comes through most clearly in narrator Martha’s ability to absorb the pain of her brother’s death from AIDS, and to forgive her mother’s lasting refusal to accept her as a lesbian woman with a rich life. As the story goes on, resourceful Martha takes on the nurturing role she never experienced as a child.
Kevin Brown designed the flexible staging, and Kyle Harris the mood-enhancing lighting. Brian Christensen’s sound design perfectly tracks the musical moods of the characters and the pop hits of the times. After a particularly tough eviction we hear The Beatles singing “A Hard Day’s Night.” I couldn’t agree more.
WHEN: August 21-30, 2026
WHERE: Theatre Three (arena), 3636 Turtle Creek Blvd., Dallas
WEB: uptownplayers.org
