snowy evening just after Thanksgiving, but the room was full.
There are eight people in Mother, three women and five men,
all in their twenties and thirties. The stage was bare except for
a half dozen white folding chairs. Mother was going to perform
what is known in the improv world as a Harold. They would get
up onstage, without any idea whatsoever of what character they
would be playing or what plot they would be acting out, take a
random suggestion from the audience, and then, without so
much as a moment’s consultation, make up a thirty-minute play
from scratch.
One of the group members called out to the audience for a
suggestion. “Robots,” someone yelled back. In improv, the
suggestion is rarely taken literally, and in this case, Jessica, the
actress who began the action, said later that the thing that came
to mind when she heard the word “robots” was emotional
detachment and the way technology affects relationships. So,
right then and there, she walked onstage, pretending to read a
bill from the cable television company. There was one other
person onstage with her, a man seated in a chair with his back
to her. They began to talk. Did he know what character he was
playing at that moment? Not at all; nor did she or anyone in the
audience. But somehow it emerged that she was the wife, and