Writer and Director: Michael Lemme
Maria DeCotis, an actor possibly in her thirties, offers a late-night audience the thoughts and perceptions of Lynne T. Walsh, a sixty-five-year-old mother of two boys, confined to a variety of mental institutions since 1995 for an act of self-harm in front of her very young children. It’s a show written by Michael Lemme based on real events. Michael Lemme was one of the small boys.
Lemme and DeCotis are both stand-up comedians from New York, and the show is a peculiar mix of monologue and stand-up routine, without the coherence of a monologue, and pretty light on jokes. People laugh, even at jokes about mental health, but it is never totally apparent why.
It is perplexing that Lemme chooses to articulate his mother’s distress through the persona of a stand-up comedian who makes not the slightest gesture towards characterisation. The stand-up routine appears to be delivered by the mother. It appears to be a gig in the suburban USA – questions to the audience include “Does anyone here walk anywhere?” and “Who has a pool in their backyard?”. The second question is answered “No one, we live in London… “ which seems a fair comment, in either London or New York. Everyone walks, no one has a backyard, let alone a pool in it, unless they have so much money they are unlikely to spend time in a Baron’s Court basement.
There is a strange dislocation in the whole show. DeCotis’ profanity-laden schtick is completely at home in comedy clubs, her New York snark is a commonplace. It would be a surprise issuing from the mouth of a suburban mom, and there isn’t any effort made to square that circle. Where the stand-up ends and the dramatic monologue begins is similarly unclear. Lemme’s script wavers between the two and never quite makes its mind up where it’s going. It also likes to slow down to a deadening pace, which could be character-driven. This is what happens when the drugs kick in, but is a dreadful way to play stand-up. It needs a very forgiving audience, and comedy club audiences are rarely forgiving.
It’s an interesting idea, presented by a capable performer, but the show never makes up its mind how to develop. Is it comedy? Therapy? Closure? All three? Lemme, writer and director and partial subject, needs to clarify his playlet maybe by using an actor and characterisation and a small touch of coherence. Alternatively, by making it funny. This sort of drops down the gap between those concepts.
Runs until 29 July 2023 and then at Edinburgh Fringe
