There's a big, pink, human flower onstage. Well, more accurately, there's a middle-aged woman wearing pink plaid overalls and a flower headdress. This is not your typical play, but then, as the flower woman has repeatedly emphasized, this is not a play at all. This is a "theatrical experience."
Lisa Kron's Tony-nominated show "Well" has received much acclaim since its Broadway opening in March 2006. The play refuses to conform to customary theatrical conventions, creating an altogether unexpected interaction among its performers, the performance and the audience.
The show opens with a monologue by Kron. She looks professional in a starched blouse and black pants, addressing the audience fearlessly. She has written a play about her experience in an allergy clinic during her college years and her mother's fight to integrate her neighborhood in Lansing, Mich. She promises that her play's two topics, though they may seem completely unrelated, will tie together in the end.
There's nothing terribly unusual about the performance until Kron's mother, Ann (Mary Pat Gleason), is introduced. She has agreed to watch her daughter's play and is sitting in her armchair in her living room. Ann functions somewhere between the actors and the audience, interacting with both. She often interjects her own comments in the show's dialogue, revising something that she thinks her daughter has missed or forgotten. She also offers the audience drinks, in a typical mom-style.
There are many places where our mothers aren't welcome (think frat parties or a romantic date), and as it turns out, the stage is one of them. As Kron tells about her time at the allergy clinic, her mother's persistent but undiagnosed illness, and her mother's role in integrating their neighborhood, Ann often interrupts or corrects her daughter. This not only breaks Kron's concentration, but disrupts her play. She is forced to revise on stage to make room for her mother's contradictions and stories. Ann has some very interesting things to say; the other actors in the show begin listening to her rather than Kron.
From this point on, things start getting really unconventional. The actors go in and out of character. Ann introduces herself to the characters, and we learn the actors' real names. At times, they are so caught up in chatting with Ann that they seem to forget the audience completely. This only adds to Kron's confusion and uncertainty. Her play isn't going according to plan, and she doesn't know what to do.
Kron tells the audience that she had wanted to show how she got "well" at the allergy clinic, and how her neighborhood got "well" through integration and the efforts of her mother, but her mother makes this impossible, constantly adding or contradicting with a, "Well ...." At one point, Kron is so frustrated with her mother that she leaves the stage, and the audience is left with the actors (out of character) and Ann (who dozes contentedly in her chair).
In all the confusion of "Well," the audience comes dangerously close to slipping into boredom. When there is nothing specific to focus on, one's attention might wander. But through its captivating dialogue and fascinating characters, the show manages to retain its viewers' interest.
The confusion of the play parallels Kron's own discovery. She slowly realizes that she doesn't even understand the issues she is trying to present in her play. After listening to Ann, the cast decides that she is oversimplifying her relationship with her mother, racial integration and the term "healthy." They leave, and Kron is left with her mother.
For the coup de grace, Ann snaps out of character and speaks to Kron as the actress, Gleason. She says that Kron has been glazing over incidents to make things fit together more nicely, to make the play go smoothly. She then stresses how Ann felt about integration in all respects; that one must "weave into the whole even the parts that are uncomfortable or don't seem to fit."
A groundbreaking "theatrical experiment," "Well" respects the complexity of issues which are so often simplified in order to make people comfortable. Rather than becoming overly serious, the play is entertaining and humorous. It addresses problems of health, race and mother-daughter relationships, but manages to leave the issues' complexities intact.
