“Now it is Really a Performance” – The Second Round of Mother Lode

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

Purchase Tickets - Click here

 June 3 & 4 @ 8:00 pm -  June 5 @ 3:00 pm
Location: Carnegie, PA 15106, USA

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