"'night, Mother"

I recently bought a play as a hard bound book from an independant Amazon seller. It is entitled, 'night, Mother, and the play won the playwright, Marsha Norman, the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

I had intended to write to Ms. Norman and request that that she sign this 1983 copy of the play. I was delighted when I opened the book, which I paid five dollars for, was already inscribed and signed. It may not be worth much, but I was please just the same.

In the first December, 1982 production of the play produced by the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge Massachussets, Kathy Bates (of Misery fame) portrayed Jessie, and Anne Pitoniak was cast as Thelma "Mama" Cates. The play moved onto New York, where Bates and Pitoniak revised their roles. In 1986, the play was produced as a film, but only received a limited theatrical release. Sissy Spacek earned the role of Jessie Cates, and Anne Bancroft was cast her mother, Thelma.

'night, Mother is a story that shows both sides of the issue of suicide. Both the mind of Jessie, who is at peace with the decision she's made to take her life the very night in which the play is set, and Thelma who tries to do anything she can to keep her daughter from the ultimate act, which cannot be reversed, are explored.

I've found this story to be the most honest account of a depressed and sucidal person's feelings and thoughts, superceding Judith Guest's 1976 novel Ordinary Peopleand its film adaptation.

This play and film made me feel happy that I am still here on earth.