*I did not read this, but saw it recently on Broadway at the Royale Theatre.

'night, Mother is a hell of a play. For a two person play, which takes place in real time, it is a moving decent into the demon world of two women, mother and daughter, co-dependents, best friends, enemies, like no other.

Jessie, the daughter is a woman deeply in pain, so much so that her capacity to live has gone, as has her capacity to love. Thelma is her mother, desperately clinging to the one person she loves, whom she needs more and more, and loses sight of more and more.

There were many sobs and sniffles in the audience towards the end of 'night, Mother, and though reading the script is different than seeing it performed by terrific actresses (Edie Falco as Jessie and Brenda Blethyn as Thelma), the story is good enough and in your face enough to do the job.

This is a play about when, if, why and how we stop being parents or kids, and start being our own people, or if that is even possible. Somewhat depressing, but serious and true.

Michael Russo

This play only has two characters, has one main plot, one setting, and is one conversation. One might think that this play, just by knowing these facts, must not be good becaue how can a writer capture an audeince's attention for 90 pages of one conversation, especially when the conversation is about suicide. Do not ask how, but Marshall Norman does it. He lets us into the world of Jessie and Thelma, and the reader is hooked on every last word.
When Jesse reveals to Thelma that she is going to commit suicide, Thelma does not beleive her. However, once Jessie begins to list her reasons, Thelma goes from disbeleif to realism in a heartbeat. The tone then changes from a mother having a night chat with her daughter to a mother trying to save her daughter's life.
Her mother ives her many reasons why she should not kiil herself, which are all reasons that Jesse shoots down. The reader can hear the panick in the mother's voice and the calmness of Jesse's without anyone acting it out or doing the dialogue.
The writing itself is poetic and beautiful. He is using death to show the beauty of life, which is amazing. The mother does such a god job at giving her daughter reasons to live that someone contiplating suicide might reconsider.
While I am not going to ive away the ending, I will just say that the author does a good job of slowing down the pace for the grand finale. The endign is not forced and the play does not end too soon or too late, it's just right. The small home is also the perfect setting for this remarkable play because the reader can really feel involved in the lives of these two people in a setting that they are similar to.
I have to give this play five stars. I read it in less than an hour because the pace of it is fast and smooth. The setting is great and the characters are so realistic they jump off the page and into your kitchen. If you want to know more about the meaning of life, I highly recommend this book.

What if your daughter or son came into the living room, and she or he told you that he or she was going to end her or his life? How would you respond? What would you do? And the question is what can you do?

Mama thinks that her and her daughter are having a normal night at the house until she finds out that her daughter has planned to end her life. At first, Thelma "Mama" thinks that Jessie is kidding when she says that she wants to shoot herself. When Thelma realizes that Jessie is serious, the conflict begins between the struggle of life and death which is out of Thelma's hands.

Thelma stalls and tries to find out why Jessie wants to end her life. In the small amount of time between life and death, Thelma finds out more about her daughter than she ever did in her entire time with while she releases secrets and concerns that she never revealed to her daughter.

'Night Mother is a play that unwinds spellbound confessions and displays intense emotions that run through the course of people lives. Jessie and Thelma are powerful characters that makes me feel like I am there with them in the room. Jessie, in the first time in her life, feels like she has a sense of control, and death is freeing her as she sees life imprisoning her. The whole play is intriguing and complex. The ending will make you feel like you have realized that life is complex and question why you exist as a human being.

Marsha Norman, 'night, Mother (Hill and Wang, 1983)

What a refreshing piece of work-- a sparse, clear-headed play that examines the ramifications of suicide and (for once) comes up with the right answer. The action takes place in two rooms, with two people, and runs about an hour and a half. The two characters, a late-thirties daughter and her mother, start with the idea that the daughter is planning on committing suicide later that night, and the resulting tension between them allows both an examination of the more stable, understandable reasons behind the desie to end one's life and the soul-baring necessary in any familial relationship (and present in only a few).****

Night, Mother is a play that covers every aspect of human life: love, family bonds, importance and usefulness in society, to a slew of others too numerous to count. The dialogue between Mother and Jessie is gripping, terse and tense. The ending will inbue in the reader so many unexplainable thoughts, which will come back at you in life like flashes in the night, to make you all the more wiser and compassionate. Outstanding!