Last week, the Trinity College Drama Society mounted the experimental play Calm Down Mother at the George Ignatieff Theater. Director Leah Stokes experimented with using drama to provoke societal discourse, and judging by the spirited discussion after the show, the play proved quite successful.
The play was a unique choice in itself: written by Megan Terry for her New York-based company Open Theatre, it premiered 39 years ago this month. The play takes the form of a series of scenes and seeks to convey an overall impression on the audience rather than a unified plot.
Throughout the show the three members of the cast (Wynne Lawrence, CharlotteSobolewski, and Danielle Westbrook) portrayed a wide variety of women. They proceeded to take on each character or set of characters with a particular prop-such as a hairbrush, shawl, or flask-and then rested it at the front of the stage to linger in the audience’s memory.
A tense highlight was when one character sees another woman with the same beauty that was in her dead mother’s hair. Played by Lawrence-whose performance stood out among the three strong actors-the character moved to the centre of the stage in a lamenting monologue while the other two cast members hummed dissonant notes. The effect was absolutely chilling.
Between scenes, the combination of music and use of props helped the audience tie together a fairly disjointed piece of writing. The climactic final scene elicited a lot of discussion following the show. A mother doing the dishes with her two daughters bickers with them about the use of birth control-one daughter does, the other doesn’t. Eventually the one who does not brings to her mother’s attention that the use of birth control goes hand in hand with pre-martial sex, and thus the mother kicks out the daughter who uses birth control.
A discussion about the play’s themes with the cast, crew, U of T experts and the audience followed the performance. Professor Cheshmak Farhoumand-Sims of Peace and Conflict Studies stole the post-play show. She said that although the play brought up many important themes, it is “culturally and time-bound.” She liked the play but had two main criticisms: the women in the play fought the whole time rather than working together, and there were no men represented. “Just as racism is not just a black issue, sexism is not just a women’s issue,” she noted.
Stokes responded in defence of playwright Terry, saying that many of the negative relationships among women in the world are perpetuated by other women. Women’s rights movements needed men both in the past and presently as well in order for them to work correctly. The absence of these things is what gives this play its political edge, she offered. It “challenges women to take responsibility for their own place in society.”
Audience member Kelda Higgins asked, “We [women] bear this power to bear children. Does denying that power deny womanhood?” A fruitful hour-long discussion involved all members of the panel and achieved what Stokes outlined in her director’s notes: “All I can promise you is that this piece will leave you questioning, considering, thinking; the true role of drama within society.”
