Video: Jessica Lange Talks MOTHER PLAY on LATE NIGHT WITH SETH MEYERS

On Monday night, Jessica Lange appeared on Late Night with Seth Meyers to talk about her role in Mother Play as Phyllis, the matriarch of the family.

Though she has worked extensively onstage (she was last seen on Broadway in the four-hour epic Long Day's Journey into Night,) this was the first time Lange has originated a role in a new work.

"I've never worked on an absolutely new play, something that's never been seen before, where the characters have not been created. You're just finding your way through. The great thing about Paula is that she's there and it's kind of a living, breathing experience where things are changed that don't work or things are added," Lange said.

She then went on to discuss some of her early New York City apartments and other roles she has played, such as her debut film role in 1976's King Kong.

Mother Play began previews April 3 and will officially open on April 25, 2024 at the Hayes Theater.

Mother Play is directed by Tina Landau and stars Tony Award winner Celia Keenan-Bolger, Academy Award, Emmy Award, and Tony Award winner Jessica Lange, and Emmy Award, Golden Globe Award, and Screen Actors Guild Award winner Jim Parsons.
From Pulitzer Prize winner Paula Vogel (How I Learned to Drive) comes Mother Play, a bitingly funny and unflinchingly honest new play about the hold our family has over us and the surprises we find when we unpack the past. 

It’s 1962, just outside of D.C., and matriarch Phyllis (Jessica Lange) is supervising her teenage children, Carl (Jim Parsons) and Martha (Celia Keenan-Bolger), as they move into a new apartment. Phyllis has strong ideas about what her children need to do and be to succeed, and woe be the child who finds their own path. Bolstered by gin and cigarettes, the family endures — or survives — the changing world around them. Blending flares of imaginative theatricality, surreal farce, and deep tenderness, this beautiful rollercoaster ride reveals timeless truths of love, family, and forgiveness.