Front: Temple Fortson, Nikki Summons. Rear: Christine Alfano, Gareth Kelly, Cheramie Jackson, and Shemika Berry. Photo by Tom Lauer.
Squeeze. Hold. Release. It’s necessary when doing pelvic floor exercises – or when you have a child. You squeeze your children tight, hold them close, and then release them into the world. “Motherhood Out Loud,” currently playing at Vagabond Players, demonstrates this cycle of motherhood through a series of scenes and monologues about the joys, agonies, and clichés of being a mom. The show starts with pregnancy, progresses to babyhood and toddlerhood, and ends with empty nesting and your ‘baby’ coming back home as an adult. Some of the sketches are laugh-out-loud funny. Some make you tear up. And some just make you reflect on your own relationships with your children. But all show the essence of being a mom.
“Motherhood Out Loud” capsulizes that roller coaster of emotions.
The show starts with three pregnant moms recalling their birth stories, stories they’ll never forget. Together they pray and pant and push. From the beginning, they realize that motherhood is suffering – most of the time in silence. This premise is repeated in the second sketch – a mom sleeping on the floor in her baby’s room — both to make sure that baby sleeps and to make sure she doesn’t get sick. From the beginning, that mother lion instinct kicks in, and she wants to do everything she can to protect her little cub.
As the kids grow up and the complaining subsides, the stories grow more complex and interesting. In one monologue, a divorced mother describes her complicated reaction to her son’s desire to dress up as Queen Esther for Purim. Another scene describes the frustration of a mother who is constantly bombarded with questions about the daughter she adopted from China. The mothers may be different in terms of age and ethnicity, but the problems are the same. Motherhood is a shared bond regardless of race or religion.
The show is performed by a talented and enthusiastic cast of six: Christine Alfaro, Shemika Berry, Temple Fortson, Cheramie Jackson, Gareth Kelly and Nikki Summons. Kelly takes on a variety of male roles, including the son who discovers his aging mother is confined to her home, and a gay dad who feels like screaming at people who say “where’s your mommy?” Alfano perfectly plays the overeager, anxious mother when her autistic son goes on his first date. And Fortson is wonderful as the mother-in-law at a bridal salon, realizing that once her son gets married, she has to share him with his wife.
To me, the most moving scene is Berry’s story of her son, a soldier going to Afghanistan. She’s frustrated since she can’t scope out the world her son is going to see. And she has to pretend that she gets the knock on the door from the chaplain and officers just to prepare herself for the worst. In a haunting chorus with Fortson, she states she will tattoo her back with hundreds of stars and her soldier will come home.
The final scene in “Motherhood Out Loud” sums up the experience – however old your child is, they’ll always be your baby. This emotional ending is the crux of the show – how moms are able to witness that moment when life begins, and how they’ll never be the same after that moment. “Motherhood Out Loud” capsulizes that roller coaster of emotions. And I couldn’t help but laugh and cry and reflect during the show with all the other moms in the audience.
Running time: 2.5 hours with a 15-minute intermission.
Advisory: Adult language.
“Motherhood Out Loud” plays through March 19, 2017, at Vagabond Players – 806 South Broadway, in Baltimore, MD. For tickets, call the box office at (410) 563-9135, or purchase them online.
