Well

“This play is not about my mother and me,” begins the character Lisa Kron in Well. Best known as the playwright of the musical Fun Home, Lisa Kron creates a brilliant autobiographical piece of theater where she brings her mother, Ann, on stage with her. Needless to say, Ann disrupts the proceedings and soon the actors Lisa has hired to enact her “multicharacter exploration of issuess of health and illness” discover that Ann is considerably more interesting than Lisa’s play. In the end, Lisa’s carefully constructed narrative collapses, leaving her to contemplate the notion that wellness lies in our ability to embrace the complexities and contradictions of life. Well is a surprising and riotously funny play that ultimately acknowledges the heartbreaking challenge of true empathy for those in our community and even toward those we love the most.