Mother Russia Off-Broadway Reviews

This doesn’t sound like a barrel-o-laughs, but Yee’s play, which opened Monday at Signature Theater, is as funny as it is smart. This is a comedy with a lot on its mind, like Talene Monahon’s recent “Meet the Cartozians,” in which issues ab...

This doesn’t sound like a barrel-o-laughs, but Yee’s play, which opened Monday at Signature Theater, is as funny as it is smart. This is a comedy with a lot on its mind, like Talene Monahon’s recent “Meet the Cartozians,” in which issues about Armenian identity brushed up against modern American pop culture.

While bemoaning the childish concept of “unprecedented times,” Mother Russia launches into a Wikipedia-level Russian history lesson, quotes Billy Joel's “We Didn’t Start The Fire,” and somberly ends with references to “the Donbas region. ...

While bemoaning the childish concept of “unprecedented times,” Mother Russia launches into a Wikipedia-level Russian history lesson, quotes Billy Joel's “We Didn’t Start The Fire,” and somberly ends with references to “the Donbas region. Navalny.” The moment earned some contemplative murmurs from the audience, but it felt more rehearsed than reflective, if you’ll pardon the theatre pun. Mother Russia, both the character and the play, beg the audience to find her funny and smart in a way that sabotages its own story.

In a recent interview, Yee said she’d been “subconsciously writing a cycle of plays about communism in Asia over the 20th century,” referring to Cambodian Rock Band (Cambodia in the 1970s), The Great Leap (China, the 1980s), and now Mother Russ...

In a recent interview, Yee said she’d been “subconsciously writing a cycle of plays about communism in Asia over the 20th century,” referring to Cambodian Rock Band (Cambodia in the 1970s), The Great Leap (China, the 1980s), and now Mother Russia (the 1990s). I can’t wait to see where—and to what decade—she’ll travel next.

The persistent pain and suffering of the Russian people never knowing who to trust become comedic fodder in this peculiar production presented by Signature Theatre. The laughs for which it vies are more strained than natural and only its ninety-minut...

The persistent pain and suffering of the Russian people never knowing who to trust become comedic fodder in this peculiar production presented by Signature Theatre. The laughs for which it vies are more strained than natural and only its ninety-minute length separates it from being a wholly leaden experience.