An Actress Known for Her Work on ‘Breaking Bad,’ Jessica Hecht Heads Up a New Adaptation of Brecht’s ‘A Mother’

What do Bertolt Brecht, George Floyd, and the 1980 disco hit “Funkytown” have in common? All figure into “A Mother,” a new play adapted, very freely, from “The Mother,” Brecht’s account of a working-class widow who through her son’s activism is drawn into the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917.Co-conceived by its playwright, Neena Beber, and an actress known to television fans for her appearances on hit series such as “Friends” and “Breaking Bad,” Jessica Hecht, “A Mother” is obviously a very personal project for Ms. Hecht, who is especially beloved for her work onstage, both in high-profile Broadway productions and in lower-scale, quirkier fare.“A Mother,” now being presented as part of Baryshnikov Arts’ 20th anniversary spring season, falls decidedly into the latter category. As one might expect, no fourth wall is provided, and Ms. Hecht first greets the audience by taking them back to her teenage years: “It’s December 1979 and I’m visiting my grandparents on Miami Beach for Christmas break, which this year happens to coincide with Hanukkah.”A more detailed description of that vacation follows, nodding to people and places who helped shape Ms. Hecht’s youth, from the discotheque where she would meet her first love to an apartment complex that catered to Holocaust survivors. The monologue, which contains other references to Jewish culture, establishes what will be a key undercurrent: how a historically oppressed group of people have continuously championed the civil rights of others, and attendant political causes. Jessica Hecht and Fergie Philippe in ‘A Mother.’ Maria BaranovaBrecht, while not a Jew himself, was a prominent ally in opposing Hitler through words and deeds; as Ms. Hecht reminds us, “The Mother” was among the works targeted in Nazi book burnings. In “A Mother,” Brecht’s play — which was itself based on a Maxim Gorky novel published in 1906 — is introduced by a rebellious drama counselor at a summer camp attended by a young Jess, as Ms. Hecht is identified in the script.Assigned with staging “Paint Your Wagon,” the 1951 Lerner and Loewe musical tracing romance in Gold Rush-era California, the counselor, Michelle, is more concerned that her charges at Camp Shalom Aleichem become acquainted with epic theater and its inherent social consciousness. “California’s gold mining companies birthed corporate America!” she declares.Michelle is played with comical ferocity by Delilah Napier, who like the other actors juggles different roles dictated by Jess, who shifts gears accordingly. One moment, Jess is having a go at Pelagea, the title character of “The Mother”; the next she has adapted that part into Pearl Glass, who speaks Yiddish and lives in Miami Beach — with Fergie L. Philippe, who has played both Jess’s suitor and Pelagea’s son, Pavel, now portraying Pearl’s boy, named Pablo.While these actors and their castmates and director, Maria Mileaf, sustain the right loosey-goosey, let’s-put-on-a-show vibe, “A Mother” can begin to feel not so much confusing as cumbersome, particularly as Ms. Hecht and Ms. Beber layer in additional references to real-life events — notable among them the 1980 Miami riots that followed the acquittal of police officers accused of killing Arthur McDuffie, a Black man. Also, a good 20 minutes could have been shaved off this one-act play, which at one point near the end promises to wrap, only to segue into another protracted monologue.Still, I appreciated the passion that fuels “The Mother,” and the opportunity to meet an actress I’ve long adored — one whose penchant for deceptively offbeat but resourceful characters is well-suited to this project — as a woman.

An Actress Known for Her Work on ‘Breaking Bad,’ Jessica Hecht Heads Up a New Adaptation of Brecht’s ‘A Mother’

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