“Now it is Really a Performance” – The Second Round of Mother Lode
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| Linda Haston - Photo by Heather Mull |
When Linda Haston, star of Mother Lode, a new play written by Virginia Wall Gruenert, first
acted in the show in 2013, her feelings about her mother were very close to the
surface. Her mother had passed away in 2011, and she describes still being very
raw.
“The first time we did this show it was more of a catharsis,”
she said. “I was still fresh from her death, reeling from everything that we
went through.”
Haston describes that she felt unable to give the play the
space that it needed, and that she was having trouble separating her
performance from the complicated issues she was still dealing with regarding
her complicated relationship with her mother.
“I suggested that we do it again, rewritten, and I was much
more able to get into it.” For Haston, the passage of the three years between
the productions had allowed her to come to terms with some of the issues that
had been holding her back before. The portrayal of her mother now matches how
she held herself in public, and how others got to perceive her.
“She gets to defend herself, she gets to show the side of
her I never got to see but that other people got to see, the funny side.”
During the 2013 production, Haston says she felt like she
was too involved in the content to be able to separate herself.
“Now it is really a performance. The second time around I’m
able to go deeper into her as a character, do it slightly differently, and it
is much easier for me to handle all kinds of new things that I’ve found in the
play.”
Don’t miss this upcoming weekend’s performances of this
moving and important work. The play is running in repertory and will be opening
this weekend for a three show schedule, Friday and Saturday nights and a Sunday
matinee.
Carnegie Stage - A Pittsburgh Theater
June 3 & 4 @ 8:00 pm - June 5 @ 3:00 pm
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