The Weight of New Motherhood Examined In Cry It Out at Mildred’s Umbrella

Mothers. We may not be one, but we’ve all come from one. That alone is reason enough to see a play about women trying to make the best decisions for their newborns while simultaneously navigating the circumstances they find themselves in. We’ve all been there on one side of that equation.

Cry It Out by Molly Smith Metzler now enjoying a stellar production at Mildred’s Umbrella gives us a more complex and nuanced reason to spend time with new mums. Yes, their realities are often funny, and Metzler’s show gives us plenty of laughs that sidestep the new mom cliché enough not to fall prey to pander.

But just when you think you’ve settled into a cleverly funny show about breastfeeding, husbands who don’t get it and silly dances to get a baby to settle, Metzler slowly slips into the serious.

Loneliness, isolation, fear, guilt, inadequacies, dread and unbridled rage. These are the foundation of Metzler’s play which flays new motherhood like a fish being filleted — out come the guts for all to see, regardless of how much money you have to clean them up.

Socio-economic status is the canopy shrouding the show and Metzler uses it to posit that money alone doesn’t make motherhood an easy road.

Neighbors Jessie (Whitney Zangarine) and Lina (Chaney Moore) have bonded over their experience of moving to Long Island’s South Shore to raise their newborns. This despite their vastly different backgrounds. Jessie is a lawyer whose husband’s well-off family is able to get her daughter into exclusive nursery schools.

Lina is a former drug addict who works as a hospital administrator while her boyfriend hasn’t a pot to piss in and lives with his alcoholic mother who is their only childcare option.

While on mat leave, the two meet daily over coffee in Jessie’s backyard (an attractive, mostly painted set design by Edgar Guajardo) and trade trench stories about the absurdity of motherhood.

While humor here definitely has some zing to it, the credit for our laughs goes directly to the muscular actors who riff off each with panache. Zangarine plays Jessie as a bit of a geek. Educated but awkward, polite but prone to blasts of expletives in frustration – a little uptight and unsure. As a foil, Moore is all fantastic South Shore swagger, accent and all. Feelings, frustrations and fucks to give are all thrown out without hesitation.

It’s a great pairing and these two have such comedic chemistry we’d be happy watching them banter all show. But the deep friendship that develops from all their talk is what hooks us.

Numerous times we’ve been asked to believe that characters who just met are somehow best buds. Theater is an exercise in leap of faith – so we often just go with it for narrative sake. But here, the friendship, loyalty and love we watch emerge between Jessie and Lina is truly something special. No question that Zangarine and Moore give us one of the best platonic yet intimate couples we’ve seen on stage in ages.

Out of that friendship comes something deeper. Worries about what happens when maternity leave is over start to dominate the conversation. Partner/family issues are discussed. The women open up to each other and vulnerability abounds.

Then there’s the uber-wealthy neighbor Adrienne (Sammi Sicinski) who lives up the hill and gets thrust upon the women when her husband (Jason Duga) begs for them to include her in their coffee group.

It’s clear Adrienne is having some kind of crisis. She seems to be ignoring her kid, focusing only on work and wants nothing to do with Jessie and Lina. Metzler smartly makes us wait to understand what motherhood challenge Adrienne represents, but boy when she lets it rip the revelation opens up another whole other avenue of sacrifice in the play and lets Sicinski steal the stage for her moment.

At the end of the 90-minute arc of the play, we’ve gone from laughing with the mothers to crying with them, frankly surprised how moved we are by the play.

It’s what Metzler no doubt wanted from her script. It’s definitely what the actors delivered. And we would be remiss not to give kudos to Director Rhett Martinez for giving equal weight and attention to the amusing and affecting parts of this production. One is not rushed for the other and we can still remember laughing even when more difficult issues are presented.

Like so many small companies in Houston, or those that are left, Mildred’s Umbrella is now operating on a drastically reduced season. But small doesn’t mean un-mighty in this case, and Cry it Out is a magnificent way for the female-focused theater to start the season.

Cry it Out continues through September 29 at Spring Street Studios, 1825 Spring Street, No. 232. For more information, visit mildredsumbrella.com.  Tickets are pay what you can.