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Well
Performance artist Kron’s work is not a play. So she says, anyway. It is “a multicharacter theatrical exploration of issues of health and illness both in the individual and in a community,” she tells us. “Did you want to read the grant proposal?” Kron intends to “explore” individual health via her chronically ill mother, Ann, with Ann’s work to racially integrate their Lansing, Michigan, neighborhood in the ’60s and ’70s illustrating community wellness. “This is not about me and my mother,” Kron insists. But Ann, surprised to find herself in her daughter’s play, begs to differ.
Kron’s exploration of convention-cracking metatheater is unexpectedly successful. Unlike many solo confessional-style performers, Kron has enough healthy distance from her story to make herself an increasingly unlikable character. She surrounds her character with self-aware actors who flow in and out of character; as they increasingly side with the warm and charming Ann, who keeps chiming in from the sidelines, Kron’s play—sorry, exploration—starts to fall apart.
Kron’s deconstruction is well-served by Kiely’s intelligent production. That’s largely thanks to the preternatural presence of Thebus as Ann. Holding forth from her La-Z-Boy in scenic designer Jack Magaw’s spot-on wood-paneled living room at the corner of the stage, Thebus glows with the maternal energy that can make parents objects of adoration and frustration. There’s something slightly jarring, though, about Mortensen’s turn as Kron, and it’s neither Mortensen’s fault nor Kiely’s. The construction of the play turns on Lisa Kron playing “Lisa Kron,” and despite Mortensen’s winning work, it’s hard to shake the nagging sense that we’re not getting the full effect. Still, on a scale of wellness, that’s barely a sniffle.
