Mother Play: a play in five evictions (MTC), at Southbank Theatre, The Sumner - 1 hour 50 minutes, with no interval

Partly drawn from the life of its Pulitzer Prize winning American writer Paula Vogel,

Mother Play is theatre at its finest.

It is a play about a lack of acceptance, about hurt and pain, courage and love in its many hues.

It is a work built on recollections, those of the daughter in the piece, Martha Herman (Yael Stone).

To say Martha had a disruptive home life is an understatement.

Photos by Brett Boardman

By the age of 11, she had moved seven times because her father didn’t pay the rent.

She was well used to packing all she needed to and moving inside a day.

Martha tears up when looking through the belongings of her beloved brother – one no longer with us – inside a medium size brown cardboard packing box.

And that is when the narrative takes us back to a cockroach riddled basement flat in Maryland in 1964.

There Martha is, aged 12, opening packing boxes alongside her brother, 14-year-old Carl (Ash Flanders).

Their liquor swilling mother, Phyllis (Sigrid Thornton), 37, cigarette in hand, rules the roost.

The love of her life, her husband Sonny (who we never meet) has abandoned them. They are all but living hand to mouth.

And so begins the story of how Martha and Carl, a well read and talented wordsmith, learned to handle their strong willed, heavily opinionated mother.

In short, she refused to accept her children’s choices of partners, as one after another she kicked out her son and daughter.

At one point, she even forbade her son from ever communicating with his sister.

Continual moves of address were also par for the course.

The relationship between mother and son, and mother and daughter continued to wax and wane for the rest of Phyllis’ days, but the bond between siblings never wavered.

Mother Play unfolds over the course of five decades and incorporates firebrand Phyllis’ mental decline.

Adroitly directed by Lee Lewis, it is an extraordinary piece about tumult in a deeply personal sense.

The performances and characterisations are phenomenal – multilayered and nuanced.

With no less than 14 changes of costume (set and costume designer Christina Smith is to be heartily congratulated), Sigrid Thornton is bold and belligerent, caustic and carping as Phyllis.

Ash Flanders is the picture of intellectual rigour, flair and flamboyance as Carl.

Yael Stone is resilience personified, showing remarkable tolerance as Martha, in the wake of countless injustices.

Composer and sound designer Kelly Ryall has done a fine job reflecting the changing eras through which the action unfolds.

Lighting designer Niklas Pajanti's change of tone throughout is similarly masterful.

What is so extraordinary about this play is the visceral reaction – indignation, outrage and sadness – that the delivery sparks as you sit there watching.

Mother Play is well deserving of a standing ovation.

It is playing at Southbank Theatre, The Sumner until 2^nd August, 2025.