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'Well' Leaves Audiences a Bit Overwhelmed

By Auburn Scallon

Friday, April 7, 2006

‘Well’, which opened at the Longacre Theater on March 30th, is Lisa Kron’s attempt at “a solo show with other people in it”. Now, as contradictory as that sounds, the problem with this show is not that there are too many players. Where she loses us is by trying to cure too many issues in one show.

In this self proclaimed “theatrical exploration of issues of health and illness both in an individual and in a community”, Kron dives into issues of hypochondria, racism, and mother-daughter relations, all the while poking fun at theatrical conventions. The show jumps from issue to issue, leaving the cast and audience equally bewildered, while being spoon-fed fleeting moments of comic relief.

It opens with Lisa’s mother asleep in a recliner on one half of the stage. Lisa has brought her there as an example through which to explore issues of wellness, because her mother has been a long time sufferer of “allergies”- a catch-all phrase to which she attributes any number of symptoms including fatigue and social anxiety. What Lisa hasn’t anticipated is that her mother wouldn’t be a quiet observer, but chooses to interrupt and comment throughout the entire show.

The other half of the stage is used for reenactments of Lisa’s memory which she narrates, ranging from time she spent in an allergy unit getting well, to her mother’s exploits as president of a neighborhood group, “curing” a racially integrated neighborhood. The show begins to fall apart when Lisa’s mother treats the actors like guests in her home, stopping scenes to offer refreshments, injecting her recollections of how things really happened, and eventually convincing the actors to abandon the show in favor of casual conversation.

Lisa eventually gives up when everything she had so carefully planned, from her cast to the privacy of an internal monologue, abandons her. She gives up on what has essentially been a passive-aggressive attack on her mother’s chronic illness, and chooses to discuss her feelings face-to-face. Unfortunately, by this point, the audience has been dragged through so much chaos that the promise of everything coming together in the end seems impossible to fulfill.

There are no easy answers to the questions that the show explores, and the easy laughs that she throws in along the way lack the subtleties that a Broadway audience deserves. The show, which premiered at the Public Theater in 2004, leaves the audience wishing for her mother’s spot in the recliner, so that someone could wake us when it was over.