On the verge of death for the umpteenth time, Anna (Linda Lavin) makes a shocking confession to her grown children: an affair from her past that just might have resonance beyond the family. But how much of what she says is true? While her children try to separate fact from fiction, Anna fights for a legacy she can be proud of. With razor-sharp wit and extraordinary insight, Our Mother's Brief Affair considers the sweeping, surprising impact of indiscretions both large and small.
Unfocused, anemic and astonishingly trivial, this drama of family and memory has somehow found its way to Manhattan Theatre Club's Broadway berth...Some of this is Greenberg's way. He doesn't really do melodrama and many of his better plays -- like The American Plan -- avoid direct conflict and sidestep escalation...But here he seems to skirt any drama at all, even as he and the director Lynne Meadow try to elevate anticlimaxes into crescendos. The acting is patently pleasant and sometimes a little better than that. Lavin is playful as ever, always testing and teasing her children, essentially a defanged version of the role she played in The Lyons.
The playwright probably has something to say about forgiveness or the allure of bad boys, but while there's a decent amount of cleverness in his lines, the story never amounts to anything of significant consequence. Director Lynne Meadow's production is fine and neither she nor her actors should be blamed for the overall sluggishness of the overwritten proceedings, but aside from Lavin, who deftly blends from acerbic to gently sentimental, OUR MOTHER'S BRIEF AFFAIR is hardly one to remember.
| 2015 | Broadway |
Manhattan Theatre Club Original Broadway Production Broadway |
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