From one of America's most acclaimed playwrights, 4-time Tony Award winner Terrence McNally comes Mothers and Sons, a powerful new Broadway play that explores the truths of who we are and who we love.
Tony and Emmy Award-winner Tyne Daly stars in Mothers and Sons, a play about a mother who pays a surprise visit to the New York apartment of her late son's ex-partner, who is now married to another man and has a young son. Challenged to face how society has changed around her - without her - she is finally able to see the rich life her son might have led. Strikingly timely and deeply compassionate, Mothers and Sons is about the evolving definition of family and the healing power of forgiveness.
Mike Nichols once observed that casting a well-loved actor in a play or movie makes the director's job easier: you don't have to spend the first half-hour securing audience interest in the actor's character. For proof of the remark, look no further than Mothers and Sons, the sometimes absorbing, somewhat unsatisfying new play by Terrence McNally that has arrived on Broadway. Without Tyne Daly as Katharine Gerard, who has come to New York from Dallas to bring her dead son's diary to his former lover, the character -- and the 90-minute, interval-less play -- would have struggled to engage us from the first beat.
To a large extent, McNally is chronicling the revolutionary changes he has seen in the lives of gay Americans - and what playwright has more right to do so? McNally, 75, who got married in 2010, writes here with the moral authority of one who has chronicled this fast-moving history in real, dramatic time; had 'Mothers and Sons' been the work of a different playwright, the way it feels in the theater would be entirely different. The persona of the writer counts for a great deal here, aesthetically, politically and otherwise. Broadway doesn't often feel like a community talking to itself about the immediate moment, but it does here. This is also an exceptionally timely play, a piece that puts great change into context and, in the Broadway world, also has the advantage of having gotten there before anyone else; same-sex marriage became legal in New York only in summer 2011.
2014 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2014 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Actress in a Play | Tyne Daly |
2014 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | Tyne Daly |
2014 | Drama League Awards | Outstanding Production of a Broadway or Off-Broadway Play | Mothers and Sons |
2014 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Actress in a Play | Tyne Daly |
2014 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play | Tyne Daly |
2014 | Tony Awards | Best Play | Susan Dietz |
2014 | Tony Awards | Best Play | Jack Thomas |
2014 | Tony Awards | Best Play | Peter Stern |
2014 | Tony Awards | Best Play | Tom Smedes |
2014 | Tony Awards | Best Play | Sanford Robertson |
2014 | Tony Awards | Best Play | Brunish-Trinchero |
2014 | Tony Awards | Best Play | Roberta Pereira |
2014 | Tony Awards | Best Play | Ed Filipowski |
2014 | Tony Awards | Best Play | Mark Lee |
2014 | Tony Awards | Best Play | Lams Production |
2014 | Tony Awards | Best Play | Ken Davenport |
2014 | Tony Awards | Best Play | Paul Boskind |
2014 | Tony Awards | Best Play | Hunter Arnold |
2014 | Tony Awards | Best Play | Loraine Alterman Boyle |
2014 | Tony Awards | Best Play | Barbara Freitag |
2014 | Tony Awards | Best Play | Debbie Bisno |
2014 | Tony Awards | Best Play | Paula Wagner |
2014 | Tony Awards | Best Play | Roy Furman |
2014 | Tony Awards | Best Play | Tom Kirdahy |
2014 | Tony Awards | Best Play | Terrence McNally |
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