Review: MOTHERS AND SONS Celebrates 20 Years of Progress on LGBT Rights, at Artists Rep

Twenty or so years ago, gay Americans were second-class citizens and gay men were dying of AIDS. Today, members of the LGBT community can get married and adopt children, and AIDS is a controllable disease. That's a heck of a lot of change for one generation, and not everyone has accepted it.

That's the issue at the heart of Terrence McNally's MOTHERS AND SONS, now playing at Artists Repertory Theatre. In the play, Katharine Gerard, who lost her only son, Andre, to AIDS 20 years ago, shows up unexpectedly at the home of Andre's former partner, Cal, who is now married to another man (Will Ogden) and has a six-year-old child. It's quite a lot to take in for someone who: a) never accepted that her son was gay, and b) doesn't understand or agree with the social changes that have taken place.

The play, which was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Play in 2014, doesn't really have a plot. One character says of the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s: "First it will be a chapter in a history book, then a paragraph, then a footnote. ... It's already started to happen. I can feel it happening. All the raw edges of pain dulled, deadened, drained away." McNally's play seems to be an attempt at making sure this history is not relegated to just a footnote. As such, it's more of a conversation -- about what happened in the past, where we are now (still battling homophobia in many areas), and where we're going (toward a much brighter future).

The action primarily consists of verbal fencing between Katharine, who is still mourning her son and clinging to her homophobic beliefs (though she does ask Will how he and Cal met and seems to take a lot of things in stride), and Cal, who loved Andre but has done quite well for himself in the interim. And, frankly, Call is just too nice to just tell Katharine to leave. Some of this fencing is funny, some will really make you mad at Katharine, and some traces the social progress of the last two decades. (As an aside, when the play opened on Broadway, it made history as the first play to depict a legally married gay couple.)

By far the best part of this production is JoAnn Johnson, who plays Katharine. She has the most interesting character and most of the best lines. But her real talent lies in the emotions she conveys between those lines. Her picture really is worth 1,000 words -- I would not want one of those withering looks directed at me! And although she's often stone cold, her grief is palpable as she mourns the losses of both her son and her life as she imagined it. Michael Mendelson is also terrific (as usual) as the way-too-nice Cal -- when he got tears in his eyes, so did I.

Ryan Tresser has a tough job as Will Ogden. The character isn't particularly likeable or particularly consistent. For example, his conversations with Katharine are friendly -- they talk about Rome, he divulges all of the details about how they got their child -- but then he tells Cal that he can't even be civil. Similarly, at one point he throws a small tantrum about not being able to live up to a ghost, while just a short time later he tells Katharine he's glad Cal had loved someone before him. I wasn't quite sure what to think.

Overall, I didn't find MOTHERS AND SONS intensely emotional or envelope-pushing, but it does paint a portrait of what at least part of our society looks like today -- LGBT people getting married, and having kids, and just generally living normal lives, much to the displeasure of some who haven't embraced social progress. It also imagines a better future, one with room for everyone, differences and all.

MOTHERS AND SONS runs through March 6. Get tickets at http://www.artistsrep.org/.

Photo credit: Owen Carey

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