“My mother hates her body / We share the same outline / She swears that she loves mine” – Lucy Dacus
Annie’s mother is dead. She enlists her four aunts– her mother’s sisters– to help write the eulogy. None of the women know what to contribute. Motherhouse reveals the complications that come with grieving a close and complicated relative.
Over a kitchen table surrounded by updated, stainless steel appliances, the women greet each other with a cacophony of “you’ve gotten so thin!”s. The dissonance of the beautiful, upper-middle-class kitchen and the complete animosity the women have towards food and their own bodies thrusts the audience into the world of the play. This is a family where appearances are prioritized, and trauma is swept under the rug. Continue reading “‘Motherhouse’ at Rivendell Explores the Complicated Faces of Grief”