A Mother
Play Description
An adaptation of Gorky’s classic black comedy, VASSA ZHELEZNOVA, A MOTHER concerns a family’s stern, penny-pinching matriarch who will do anything for her family.
Production Info
Cast: 9 total (5 female, 4 male)Full Length Comedy (about 120 minutes)
Multiple Sets
Contemporary Costumes
- Reviews
- About the Author(s)
- About the Book
- Special Notes
Press Quotes
“… Dark, invigoratingly sardonic … Constance Congdon’s MOTHER is as uncompromisingly savvy as it is bitingly funny … MOTHER is an exhilarating blend of one of Chekhov’s dysfunctional provincial families run through the wringer of Joe Orton’s iconoclastic comedy. It’s also Maxim Gorky through and through, providing a canny look at Gorky as a dramatic bridge between Chekhov and Brecht. Congdon’s A MOTHER is adapted from Gorky’s play VASSA ZHELEZNOVA … MOTHER [is] as much an enlightening rediscovery as an exciting new play. Vassa, a kind of proto-Mother Courage, is the head of a family one generation removed from serfdom and facing a crisis. The husband with whom she’s built a fairly successful peat-mining and tile-making business is dying upstairs. Without a will, all their possessions will pass to their two sons — the uselessly self-pitying Pavel and the slothful, self-indulgent Semyon, a man who can no longer fit into any of his clothes except pajamas. Congdon’s dialogue is crisp, her Gorky-derived characters captivating and her wit devilishly sharp …” — Robert Hurwitt, San Francisco Chronicle
Book Information
Publisher | BPPI |
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Publication Date | 11/30/2004 |
Pages | 96 |
ISBN | 9780881452433 |
Special Notes
If original stage producers credits appear in bold below, all licensees are required to include them in the following form on the title page in all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play and in all advertising in which the full cast appears in size of type not less than ten percent (10%) of the size of the title of the Play:
Originally produced by American Conservatory Theater, San Francisco
In addition, the following must appear within all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play:
by special arrangement with Broadway Play Publishing Inc, NYC
www.broadwayplaypub.com