My overall impression
This is an incredible theatre experience accompanied by an incredible script. “Mud” tells the story of essentially “struggle,” and whether that’s about finances, family, education, self doubt, physical disablements, or living it’s a powerfully, universal topic that was so carefully focused and detailed in this production that I couldn’t take my eyes off of it or keep my heart out of it. I won’t ruin the play’s sweet slopes and rough edged cliffs. It’s a quietly emotional piece and a loudly convicting one as well. Each character plays a role in keeping the others alive and vice versa in a time and place that hits home. I am still a little shaken by some of the stage pictures and moments constructed by Shaya Mulcahy and her brilliant cast. Annie Hamilton plays Mae, and her portrayal of this woman trying to love and take care while striving to be more than a woman in the mud with nothing is so enrichingly hard to watch because she so perfectly embodies the play’s central picture of struggle. And Mae doesn’t even have physical ailments to help her seem tragic, it’s all bottled up in her, and hers is a plight so relevant and heartbreaking, you’ll never be able to forget that face. Riley Smith, portraying a child that is not a child, draws the audience’s sympathy for a man (Lloyd) that cannot comprehend his own world, most of all his housemate Mae’s. A man whose every action is an impulse as opposed to a well thought out plan, Smith successfully and believably forces the audience not to try and deem Lloyd’s actions good or bad (realistic or ridiculous), but to deem them simple minded, which in this play’s complex world is the most tragic thing to see unfold. A.J. Helfet enters the story as Henry, who moves into Mae and Lloyd’s life with a voice of idealism and independence. And while Helfet is masterfully charismatic and believable as the “best” the mud has to offer, nothing is a fantastic as when Henry has a stroke and returns to the house after treatment. I could not help myself from cringing and biting my lips as you comprehend the full life that is maintained by Helfet throughout, but is now in the confines of a broken body. The independence is gone, the ideals are gone, and the bright and handsome man Henry was can no longer express independency and has enough trouble speaking that he cannot articulate his wondrous mind. My hat’s off to this portrayal, truly mesmerizing. Suffice it to say the acting is remarkably healthy and the direction and concept that exists within the show, directed once again by Shaya Mulcahy, ebbs and flows with the story effortlessly and at the same time brings it all full front and in your face. Do not miss this opportunity to support and delight in some absolutely essential theatre.
