Cry It Out
Or, So When Are You Going Back to Work? Molly Smith Metzler's play concerns three new moms, but the drama is less about changing family dynamics and more about extant economic realities. It's a smart set-up: working class Lina can't afford to live in Port Washington, Long Island, but her mother-in-law has lived there since forever, so it's a good place to stay and save — if only Mom didn't drink so much. Lawyer-on-leave Jessie is next door in what is, for her, a starter home, the place she and her husband-from-a-rich-family can afford in today's crazy real estate market. If only her in-laws weren't so hellbent on their joining the upper crust. And Adrienne the jewelry designer lives high above them both, in the ritzy community that looks out on the bay. If only her husband would stop looking down at the happy moms meeting for coffee every day in their backyard. It takes only a tiny bit of narrative work to bring these three women from three very different economic classes into believable contact and conversation. And it's good conversation, really good — almost entirely free of false notes. It starts out about the struggles of motherhood, but gives way to the struggles of not getting to be a mom as much as you'd like, or maybe even not getting to be yourself as much as you'd like. Lina and Adrienne get the more extreme moments, so it's left to Jessie in the middle-class to manage the quieter sort of desperation, winningly and affectingly portrayed by Katee Drysdale. It's not a big drama, but it is a real one, and as such, does not need to deliver any ending that rises above the miserably mundane to achieve its desired effect.
When
Ongoing until Sunday, September 10, 2023
Hours
| Sundays, 2pm-4pm |
| Thursdays, 7:30pm-9:30pm |
| Fridays, 8pm-10pm |
| Saturdays, 8pm-10pm |