Playwright Matthew Lombardo, Known for Plays That Focus on Extraordinary Women, Offers Up ‘Conversations with Mother’

During the past three decades, Matthew Lombardo has written a number of plays that focus on extraordinary and occasionally famous women, several of which have become vehicles for celebrated stage and screen actresses — among them Kathleen Turner, Kate Mulgrew, and Valerie Harper. Ms. Mulgrew played Katharine Hepburn in Mr. Lombardo’s “Tea at Five,” and Harper was Tallulah Bankhead in “Looped,” which had a short run on Broadway in 2010.Mr. Lombardo’s latest play, “Conversations with Mother,” was inspired by a woman who’s less widely known, though it surely required less research on the part of the playwright, her son. This one-act, semi-autobiographical play introduces us to Bobby Collavechio, also a playwright, whom we meet as an adolescent and follow into middle age, and Maria Collavechio, his aggressively loving Catholic mother.The latter role, as written here — and portrayed by Caroline Aaron, best known for playing an aggressively loving Jewish mother on “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” — proves as colorful a character as any movie star Mr. Lombardo has channeled in his past work. The basic dynamic between Bobby and Maria is established in a prologue, in which a very young Bobby, played by a musical theater star, Matt Doyle, calls in from summer camp, begging to come home. Bobby asks his mother not to get angry as he spills concerning details; she does, of course, but then melts when her precious boy starts crying.Matt Doyle and Caroline Aaron in ‘Conversations with Mother.’ Carol RoseggWhile it becomes clear in the following couple of scenes — set in the 1970s, as Bobby matures into a young adult from a teenager — that Maria is no pushover, her devotion to her son remains constant and ferocious. She readily accepts that he’s gay, but won’t abide an abusive boyfriend; later, she supports and pushes Bobby through various other struggles, from getting his career off the ground to getting off drugs. Mr. Lombardo and director Noah Himmelstein sustain a light comedic tone throughout; the writer acknowledges, with a wink, that his forays into slightly deeper waters haven’t endeared him to all reviewers. “That critic from the New York Times was right. You really haven’t met a cliché you didn’t like,” Maria teases Bobby at one point. One of Bobby’s shows closes on opening night; Mr. Lombardo’s “High,” starring Ms. Turner as a nun and recovering alcoholic, enjoyed only seven post-preview performances on Broadway.The biggest crisis of the ’80s and ’90s in the gay community is only briefly acknowledged, as Maria fears Bobby has contracted “the AIDS.” Her use of misplaced articles is a running joke, as is her ignorance of certain theater terms: A playwright is a “play-writer,” and rehearsal is “play practice.” These malapropisms, however corny, are made affectionately, and with a nod to the practical wisdom imparted by folks like Maria and, presumably, Mr. Lombardo’s mom. Ms. Aaron, with her husky voice and flamboyant presence — costumed by Ryan Park and coiffed by hair and wig designer Tom Watson, she suggests an Italian-American variation on Mike Myers’s old “Coffee Talk” persona from “Saturday Night Live,” Linda Richman — serves them gamely.Mr. Doyle, who earned a Tony Award playing an even more patently (and comically) neurotic young man in the most recent Broadway revival of “Company,” conveys Bobby’s frustration with and love for his mom with an effortless warmth, so that the character is consistently likeable, at times in spite of himself.Mr. Lombardo’s reverence for his subject reaches its height in a prologue that’s as sweetly charming as it is unabashedly sentimental. As memory-based matriarchs go, Maria may not be nearly as fascinating or ripe for analysis as, say, Amanda in “The Glass Menagerie” or Mary in “A Long Day’s Journey into Night,” but I’ll bet she’d be a lot more fun to hang out with.

Playwright Matthew Lombardo, Known for Plays That Focus on Extraordinary Women, Offers Up ‘Conversations with Mother’

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