For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again

by Toby Zinman

Michel Tremblay is a French Canadian playwright who has achieved considerable success both in Canada and in the U.S. in translation. And since the narrator in this play is named Michel, and since this narrator is an aspiring playwright, we can, without too much risk, assume this play is autobiographical, and that the central character is a portrait of Tremblay’s mother. What I can’t figure out is why anybody would find it a "pleasure" to see this woman again. Another thing I can’t figure out is how painting such an obnoxious portrait could be seen as an homage.

The play (really more a series of monologues, lasting 90 minutes) takes us through more than a decade. Sally Mercer plays the mother, Jeff Coon the narrator/son. Since he has little to do or say through most of the play except sit in a chair and squirm patiently but uncomfortably, occasionally lifting moist eyes at his endlessly talking mother, he seizes the chance to ham it up at the start. Coon introduces the show with what amounts to a quiz, running through allusions to the world's great dramatic literature; he is so shamelessly crude and excessive that it's embarrassing to watch, especially in an actor capable of much more subtlety. And given that Mercer, another actor I've admired for years, strikes only one note, in a voice so irritatingly querulous with hand gestures so repetitious, perhaps the problem lies not only with this dreadful script but with Gene Roland Frank's direction as well.

The show begins when Michel is 10 and has just brought the police to the house for throwing ice, egged on by a bunch of pals. She does a good 10 minutes, maybe 15, on how stupid that was and what terrible melodramatic consequences await. When he's 14, she argues with him about the rubbishy romance novels she encourages him to read, squelching all his questions about how unrealistic they are. Things drag along through riffs on television acting, harangues about roast beef, endless accounts of cousin Lucille's recital and her sister-in-law, Gertrude. Mainly she is cruel and mean-spirited; she makes up facts and stories in ways supposed to be charming but merely reveal her to be ill-informed and naive. When she is stuck for an explanation, she puts off her son's questions with, "It comes from the good Lord."

There's a famous story by Flannery O'Connor in which an awful, talkative woman is shot by a criminal called The Misfit; after he kills her, he remarks, "She would of been a good woman if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life." Could somebody please get The Misfit on the phone? He's needed in Ambler.

For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again

Through Dec. 14, Act II Playhouse, 56 E. Butler Ave., Ambler, 215-654-0200

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