By Cristie Ritz King, founder of The Right Hand Mom
The information I took in when I glanced at the website for Motherhood Out Loud had me prepared to laugh at the familiar moments I’d come to know as universal in this parenting journey. What I didn’t expect was that I would alternate my laughter with streaming tears.
You can’t really describe Motherhood Out Loud as a play. It’s more a collection of monologues but it’s not really that either. Monologues somehow conjour up images of solo actors staring into the dark, going on and on as if they’re the only ones in the room. Hence the mono.
Motherhood Out Loud is far from detached and never boring. The actors never stare into the distance. They play off each other at times, the audience other times and they even stand back and let the graphics on stage take their turn telling the story.
The website calls Motherhood Out Loud, ”Utterly unpredictable, Motherhood Out Loud shatters traditional notions about parenthood, unveils its inherent comedy and celebrates the deeply personal truths that span and unite generations.”
I’d say that’s just about right on. There were moments where I thought the actors were telling my story and other moments where I had no personal concept of how the character might feel, such as the Gay Dad wondering when mall Santas will stop asking his daughter where her mommy is or the Mom with the biological son fielding out-of-bounds questions about her adopted Chinese daughter. No matter whether I could see myself in their shoes or not, the universal truths of parenthood came through each and every story and the result was raucous laughter AND heart wrenching tears.
Much like Motherhood itself, Motherhood Out Loud evoked emotions in me that often caught me by surprise, sometimes scared me, but in the end left me utterly satisfied.
Motherhood Out Loud is playing at Primary Stages in NYC. The show runs through the end of October. For $5 discount on tickets use the code BWWMOM and purchase tickets here. *