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| Michael Learned, Hugh Kennedy, Jacob Wilner, and James Lloyd Reynolds Photo Credit: Mark Garvin |
Mothers
and Sons. By Terrence McNally; Wendy C. Goldberg directed.
Philadelphia Theatre Company production through March 8, 2015 at Suzanne
Roberts Theatre, 480 S. Broad St. (at Lombard), Philadelphia. 215-985-0420 or www.philadelphiatheatrecompany.org.
Drama shows us both our better and
worse selves. Sometimes it shows us how heroic we might be, imagining ourselves
as superheroes who can save the world. Sometime, as in several recent works, it
shows us how dreadfully we have behaved in the not too distant past. Selma
reminds us how we treated blacks in this country, The Imitation Game and
Oscar remind us of how we have treated homosexuals.
Watching these semi-historical
stories I am amazed at the progress we have made and yet how those same
prejudices are still with us. We still have segregation; we still struggle with
homosexuality, although now the discussion, in this country at least, focuses
on gay marriage, while in other places, such as Russia, it’s still a crime to
be gay; we still don’t have gender equality; in Europe anti-Semitism has
re-emerged. And now we have someone new to hate, the Muslim population is something
to be feared and demonized.
