REVIEW: ‘Morning Sun’ explores one woman’s life, from multiple angles
Photo: From left, Blair Brown and Edie Falco star in Morning Sun. They are joined by Marin Ireland in a Manhattan Theatre Club production. Photo courtesy of Matthew Murphy / Provided by BBB with permission.
NEW YORK — The off-Broadway premiere of Simon Stephens’ Morning Sun features three powerful performances from actors who are at the top of their game. Edie Falco, of The Sopranos fame, plays a woman living in a Greenwich Village apartment and interacting with her mother (Blair Brown) and daughter (Marin Ireland); however, to say that there are only three characters in the play would be misleading. Within seconds, they can change roles and change perspectives; they move throughout life with a constant shifting of the focus and changing of chronology.
In many ways, Morning Sun allows the audience to view these women from multiple angles and via multiple lenses. They must grow in front of the audience’s eyes, and they need to be convincing at multiple ages and in multiple parts. There are no sweeping costume changes or turning of the sets. This is spartan theater, with three performers knowing how to spin a narrative and mold characters through beautifully realized dialogue and genuine feelings of love, hurt and uncertainty.
The show, which is playing an extended run at Manhattan Theatre Club’s Stage I at City Center, can be purposely disorienting as characters are established and the central conceit of the play — these multiple, ever-changing perspectives — becomes apparent. However, once the theatrical flow is achieved, the characters effortlessly glide through life, beginning and ending relationships, loving and hurt each other with their comments, moving in and moving out according to personal and professional developments.
Director Lila Neugebauer, of The Waverly Gallery on Broadway, keeps the actors rotating around the wide proscenium of the off-Broadway venue. They sit, they clean up, they get trapped in memories. It’s a credit to the director and playwright that the action has a dual feeling of time lapse; there are moments when years fly by, while at the same time, it feels as if the narrative is nicely tucked into one day in this New York City apartment.
Brown and Ireland are impressive in their respective roles. Ireland can convincingly play her daughter character at multiple ages; all she needs to do is a different facial expression or move of the hands, and the audience is believing her performance. Brown is an understated performer who exudes calmness and serenity while the proceedings become increasingly complex and tense. Both are performers who have never been better.
Falco builds the the heart of the piece, a woman who lives her entire life over the span of the play’s duration. She has difficult relationships, including with her daughter. She has a genuine adoration for her apartment, which was passed down from her mother, but later in life she feels the need to change things around and move to Colorado. She is a nurse who sees the stark realities of the HIV/AIDS epidemic at the hospital where she works. It’s a touching, believable performance, one filled with strength and fragility, love and concern. Falco plays the character who is explored the most and thus the one the audience gets to know on the most intimate of levels.
Stephens is an expert writer who is able to shine a spotlight on the seemingly ordinary. His dialogue is realistic and heartfelt, and the shifting perspectives offer a simultaneous commentary track on the action. One can appreciate how he is able to accomplish this task; evidence can be found in the change in tenses as the characters speak. They are within a scene, conversing and speaking of love and life, and then one character breaks the fourth wall and offers a look into the crystal ball and how the scene will impact the future. Then the other characters respond, sometimes begrudgingly, to how their future will be written. It’s a wonderfully exciting theatrical technique that never feels gimmicky. There are times when the play feels like Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, with characters having the ability to examine the past and foretell the future, and the work of Edward Albee, most notably Three Tall Women.
Morning Sun is a powerful new play that examines the many ways families come together and break apart. Thanks to three tremendous performances, fine direction and a clever script, this is one of the highlights of the season.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Morning Sun by Simon Stephens. Directed by Lila Neugebauer. Starring Edie Falco, Marin Ireland and Blair Brown. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes. Playing an extended run through Dec. 19 at Manhattan Theatre Club’s Stage I, located at City Center. Click here for more information and tickets.
