Well

I didn't get to see this play on Broadway, though I sure wish I had! It is so wonderfully written and it is easy to imagine the vivid scenes taking shape onstage. Really wonderful stuff about a solo artist working on her first multi-character play, breaking down her own emotional walls with the introduction of her mother. The play breaks so many wonderful conventions and addresses the importance of physical and mental health and how everyone exlpores this journey to "wellness" in their own way. It was marvelously funny, insightful, and heart-breaking at the same time. It's a play to read and reread and enjoy each time.

A very avant-guarde appproach in which the main character is the playwright herself, Lisa Kron, invites delight in the midst of chaos and meaning. It seems to be about the relationship between a daughter and her mother and becomes the relationship between a mother and her daughter with a little support for both from their friends. As things build on stage with a mix of characters (some playing triple roles) Kron's message becomes clear. We are alike yet we are separate. We are sick and we are well. There is no line between sick people and well people. It's about much more..really..it's about what it means to integrate and become something other than someone else. I hope my daughters will read and maybe even see the play. I wish I had see it when my mother was still alive. Besides the profound conclusion..this play is very funny. Enjoy!

Lisa Kron's WELL was one of the best plays I saw in 2004. Kron combines the autobiographical style of solo performance with the meta-theatricality of Pirandello and comes up with an original, entertaining, and truly moving play. It's probably helpful to distinguish between Kron, the author of the play, and Lisa, the character in the play. In creating a play about her troubled relationship with her mother, Lisa self-servingly wants the audience to understand the situation from her point of view. But stories and characters take on lives of their own, and the play's humor and dramatic tension comes from Lisa's attempts to maintain control even as things increasingly spin out of control. And isn't that a little like life? Kron takes Lisa to task, satirizing her own vain attempts to separate herself from her wonderful/awful mother. And this is why the play is so powerful: it acknowledges our deep-rooted need to individuate from our parents, but also our equally deep-rooted need for connection and approval. What at first seems like a comic hatchet-job about someone's "mad mother" becomes a thoughtful exploration of how and why we create stories in order to understand ourselves and our world. WELL combines sentiment and insight, and it does so with real wit and theatrical bravado. It's a wonderful play.

I stumbled upon the 1-star review below while searching for a copy of Well to use in a playwriting class. I wanted to show my students that it's possible to fracture theatrical forms and still be funny and smart and real and heartbreaking. I saw the final Broadway performance of Well (on Mother's Day, appropriately enough), and it was the best thing I'd seen on Broadway that year. Lisa Kron is a warm and generous performer, but the play is strong enough to stand without her. It's deeply personal and very funny, and it's must-see (or must-read) theatre for anyone who's ever struggled to come to terms with a difficult but loving parent or lived with the guilt and elation of breaking free, of being healthier and saner than the ones we left behind. A full, rich, complex, and constantly surprising play. If you can't see it, read it! And in response to Shakespeare's final comment below (Shakespeare??)--"Ms. Kron has inadvertently created a challenge to anyone wanting to stage the most sophomoric production on mother-daughter relationships." This is a bad thing?