Mary Page Marlowe is an accountant from Ohio. She's led an ordinary life, making the difficult decisions we all face as we try to figure out who we really are and what we really want. As Tracy Letts brings us moments-both pivotal and mundane-from Mary's life, a portrait of a surprisingly complicated woman emerges. Intimate and moving, Mary Page Marlowe shows us how circumstance, impulse and time can combine to make us mysteries...even to ourselves.
So what can you call Mary Page Marlowe? Because this British debut for Tracy Letts’s 2016 play is an odd 100 minutes of theatre, structurally at least. Matthew Warchus’s precision production begins with a superb diner scene in which Mary Page tells her children she’s leaving the family home. Seemingly significant statements (“Sometimes we do things we shouldn’t do”) stud the small, sharp observations. Riseborough keeps it real but lets you feel the character’s soul. Great writing.
Each of its eleven scenes stand alone as dramatic snapshots of a life, but each informs the others. We connect threads, yet we’ll only ever have a partial picture of Mary Page, as we do of pretty much everyone. “Things are not what they appear to be,” says a fellow student, casting her tarot. Telling a palliative care nurse about her job, Sarandon’s final version of Mary Page says it’s rare for all the numbers to add up. Even a woman who considers herself “unexceptional” will have unknowable depths.
| 2016 | Chicago |
Steppenwolf Original Production Chicago |
| 2018 | Off-Broadway |
Second Stage Theater New York Premiere Off-Broadway |
| 2025 | West End |
West End |
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