Stage Review - Cry It Out (As If Theatre)
Stage Review - Cry It Out
Presented By: As If Theatre, Seattle, WA (Kenmore Community Center)
Date Reviewed: Thursday, October 26, 2023
Reviewed By: Greg Heilman
We humans are an interesting bunch. We share experiences and yet expect folks to understand that our own individual hardships are more impactful or, dare I say, more important than theirs. We expect friends, family, and acquaintances to look below the surface and realize that we’re all going through something while we don’t offer the same courtesy in return. When new humans enter the world, a family’s life is turned completely upside down. There are choices to be made, from breast feeding vs. formula, what brand of diapers to use, nap schedules, any number of things. Parents need to decide on child care, whether someone is staying home with the child, or if a parent is going back to work. And as if the decisions themselves aren’t numerous enough, the inputs to those choices are even more plentiful, ranging from how one was raised, to peer and societal pressure, and the ability (cost or otherwise) to afford some of the options, just to name a few. Each of these combinations results in an infinite number of outcomes, meaning that no experience is going to be the same, no two parenting styles are going to be the same, and thus no two children are going to be the same. This is just some of what Cry It Out, written by Molly Smith Metzler, and presented by As If Theatre onstage at the Kenmore Community Center through October 29,m is attempting to tackle.
The play, directed here by Betsy Mugavero, deals with three new moms, Jessie, Lina, and Adrienne, each with different backgrounds, family structures, and status within the socioeconomic landscape of Long Island. They also have different expectations put upon them by their husbands and families. Cry It Out examines all of these relationships in the context of these external influences while also tackling the idea of judgment, asking if it’s possible, and if so, how, for women of such diverse backgrounds to get along based solely on that one thing that ties them together, their babies. While it’s told from the female perspective, Cry It Out is a play that anyone who has had or has been a parent can appreciate. And appreciation is a key word here, because for those of us who aren’t what is perhaps the target demographic of here, it is an enlightening look at motherhood and the pressures that are put specifically on women, a largely unfair balance in comparison with the things that fathers of newborns have to deal with generally. There is a lot that is thrust upon them, and these are not decisions that mothers have the luxury of dismissing. It’s a lot to take on, and Cry It Out does so, very well. This is a very well written play, it never comes across as preachy, but rather it gets the message across through humor and through its portrayal of real and honest relationships.
Cry It Out doesn’t need a lot of fanfare to be done well. A simple set, like the one Ken Michels has designed for this production, is more than sufficient. Here, we are in Jessie’s backyard, where she meets up with neighbor Lina, whose neighboring house is more implied than seen, new father Mitchell, who asks the pair if his wife Adrienne can spend some time with the other mothers, and Adrienne herself. Gwyn Skone’s lighting does a nice job of illuminating day vs. night and otherwise providing focus very well, and William French’s supporting sound design is applied where it needs to be and is not overwhelming. It’s easy to overcomplicate a story like this, but Betsy has kept this simple, letting the actors do the work, which they do extremely well.
Taryn Pearce is Jessie, perhaps the central focus of the show, the one around which most of the action takes place. She’s got her struggles as a new mom, between nap time, scheduled activities, and the choice around whether to let her baby self sooth. Jessie is also having a time with the decision around whether to go back to work or stay home with her baby, and how to communicate the decision to her husband. Taryn’s strength here is her emotional range. Her Jessie is generally level headed, but when some of these decisions become too much, that’s when Taryn shines. There’s a scene later in the show when Jessie and Lina are roleplaying that is the best example of this, phenomenal work. Lina, played here by Gabriela Noble, is a real treat. She’s the no-nonsense neighbor who isn’t afraid to tell it like it is, sort of a Susie Myerson type (if you’re familiar with The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel). Her New York accent is spot on and her portrayal of Lina is wonderful. Lina has her own issues with childcare and an impending return to work, and watching Gabriela work her character through these emotions is very enjoyable. You couldn’t ask for two more different mothers than Jessie and Lina, but it works, and that’s the beauty of this play. There’s always more below the surface if we just give ourselves time to look there, and when we do, we realize that yes, we’re all going through something and the something someone else is going through is just as important to them as our something is to us. It also means that just because it appears that someone “has it all”, that doesn’t necessarily make it so. Take Mitchell and Adrienne. Mitchell, played by Varun Kainth, is worried about his wife and how she’s “changed” after having the baby. Change is another key theme here, how having a new baby changes parents, mothers especially, and how those changes are looked upon by their spouses and families. Adrienne (Kira Dorrian) has a different take on it. They live in the “house on the hill”, but their struggles are just as real as those that Jessie and Lina are going through. Kira’s Adrienne is sharp and hard, but there is a softness below the surface and Kira keeps that down very well in this portrayal. Varun, playing Mitchell, the only male character here (others are referred to, but not seen), is in a difficult position in a story told from the perspective of women. He’s sort of representing all men here, looking in from the outside, well intentioned but not fully informed, but in the end enlightened to the complex challenges faced by mothers of newborns. There’s a nuance about his performance that I like. He’s fully engaged in this role and his conversations. I could say this about the entire cast, though. Their work together feels natural and real. Cry It Out relies heavily on the actors to deliver to make it successful and this group does.
Cry It Out is a rare commodity. It’s enlightening, but not preachy, it’s funny without losing the seriousness of the message, and it’s timeless. It is a show that, while told through the lens of motherhood, is a layered thesis on sex roles, class, societal expectations, judgement, and the hard choices that befall new parents. Presented here by an excellent cast under the direction of Betsy Mugavero, the As If production of Cry It Out serves up that most important of dishes, perspective.
Cry It Out is presented by As If Theatre and runs onstage at the Kenmore Community Center in Kenmore, WA through October 29. For more information and tickets, visit https://asiftheatre.com/.
