My Mama Monologues, Denver:
Or Talk’n‘bout your Rocky Mountain Mama
By Raymond D Jones
One of the certainties of human existence is that almost all of us love our mothers. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t recognize and acknowledge that they have flaws, deficiencies, and idiosyncrasies, all existing along with the love, encouragement, and support that is also within them. This is precisely what made My Mama Monologues (MMM) Denver, performed May 7 and 8, 2010, at New Hope Family Life Centre, so intriguing and entertaining, so warm and fuzzy, and yet, so weird and crazy. There are some nutty moms out there, and they have children, and the children have actually survived them, in most cases. Consider, for instance, the story of the mother who, just before she passed out after a mountain party, put her eight year old daughter behind the wheel of the car to drive down the mountain to home. The daughter is still frightened. And yet, there are some moms who are so “white bread” and normal that you wonder how did that son or daughter come out of her.
MMM is a fun and engaging series of performed readings that serves as a giant couch from which actors/readers recount certain experiences they have had with, or stories about, their mothers. As the actors read the different stories the audience begins to experience with the reader the different feelings, frustrations, joys, sorrows, anger, sadness, and the myriad of emotions that the stories elicit. The beauty of the play is that almost every one of the readings reminds you of some aspect of your own or someone else’s mother whom you know, either from the standpoint of what she was like or what she did, or what she did not do that you might have liked for her to do, or how you might have liked for her to be. In a word, the stories were touching.
Many of the stories were from the original MMM that was held on Maui, Hawaii on Mother’s Day weekend in 2009, and which reflected that regional flavor and its interesting characteristics. More fun were the stories from local women whose stories often reflected features and faces familiar to the Denver audience, and raised similar emotions in members of the local audience. You would have to not have a mother to not have been touched by almost any of the stories, so real and heartfelt they were.
The cadre of women who “performed” the readings was very expressive, dramatic, and believable in the renderings. They assisted the audience to enjoy the readings by lending broad swathes of their own personalities to the spoken words. Local actresses Satya Cyprian, Nancy Fromhart, Laurel Harris, Rachel Mather, Jennifer Myers, and Diane Thiemann, along with well known poet and playwright Cydnie Wilson, writer Shaunya Boddie and story teller JoAnn Saenz, presented the stories in two acts. Mary Holt, in her first role as Producer, did an excellent job of overseeing the production, with the assistance of Co-Producer Venita Vinson. The play was sponsored by The Holt Group LLC, a Denver law firm that is active in community affairs.
Or Talk’n‘bout your Rocky Mountain Mama
By Raymond D Jones
One of the certainties of human existence is that almost all of us love our mothers. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t recognize and acknowledge that they have flaws, deficiencies, and idiosyncrasies, all existing along with the love, encouragement, and support that is also within them. This is precisely what made My Mama Monologues (MMM) Denver, performed May 7 and 8, 2010, at New Hope Family Life Centre, so intriguing and entertaining, so warm and fuzzy, and yet, so weird and crazy. There are some nutty moms out there, and they have children, and the children have actually survived them, in most cases. Consider, for instance, the story of the mother who, just before she passed out after a mountain party, put her eight year old daughter behind the wheel of the car to drive down the mountain to home. The daughter is still frightened. And yet, there are some moms who are so “white bread” and normal that you wonder how did that son or daughter come out of her.
MMM is a fun and engaging series of performed readings that serves as a giant couch from which actors/readers recount certain experiences they have had with, or stories about, their mothers. As the actors read the different stories the audience begins to experience with the reader the different feelings, frustrations, joys, sorrows, anger, sadness, and the myriad of emotions that the stories elicit. The beauty of the play is that almost every one of the readings reminds you of some aspect of your own or someone else’s mother whom you know, either from the standpoint of what she was like or what she did, or what she did not do that you might have liked for her to do, or how you might have liked for her to be. In a word, the stories were touching.
Many of the stories were from the original MMM that was held on Maui, Hawaii on Mother’s Day weekend in 2009, and which reflected that regional flavor and its interesting characteristics. More fun were the stories from local women whose stories often reflected features and faces familiar to the Denver audience, and raised similar emotions in members of the local audience. You would have to not have a mother to not have been touched by almost any of the stories, so real and heartfelt they were.
The cadre of women who “performed” the readings was very expressive, dramatic, and believable in the renderings. They assisted the audience to enjoy the readings by lending broad swathes of their own personalities to the spoken words. Local actresses Satya Cyprian, Nancy Fromhart, Laurel Harris, Rachel Mather, Jennifer Myers, and Diane Thiemann, along with well known poet and playwright Cydnie Wilson, writer Shaunya Boddie and story teller JoAnn Saenz, presented the stories in two acts. Mary Holt, in her first role as Producer, did an excellent job of overseeing the production, with the assistance of Co-Producer Venita Vinson. The play was sponsored by The Holt Group LLC, a Denver law firm that is active in community affairs.
