Article:9733; Posted: May 25, 2015 at 2:00 p.m.

A mother’s nature is far from predictable–if only because no two mothers are alike. In “Mother’s Nature” three very different scenes show different aspects of parenting and why women do the things they do, even when they sometimes seem outlandish.

Directed by Jeff Croff, who was also in charge of set design, lighting, sound and costumes, the three plays take place in the intimate space of the AA Creative Corridor where the Ixion company performs. Intermissions after each of the first two plays allow for scene changes and encourage patrons to buy homemade treats with proceeds going to the Greater Lansing Food Bank.

The first play, “Enough is Enough,” features three women in modern Greece where a frustrated mother (Sadonna Croff) has come to consult an Oracle (Erica Beck) of Apollo about her daughter’s stubbornness and independence. However, she doesn’t get Apollo. She gets Phoebe (Rikki Perez), the titan who is Apollo’s grandmother. Despite being the patron deity of prophecy, Phoebe is tired of prophesying for the hoi polloi and dropping her wisdom on tourists who have little understanding or intelligence.

Of the three shows, this is the one least about relationships and the one that requires the least connection among the actresses. Instead, Terry Palczewski explores individual destiny with each woman having to ask why they continue to do the things they do. There is humor in the exchanges between characters, especially as the Oracle must find diplomatic interpretations of Phoebe’s acerbic and frustrated comments. The final question, though, is not nearly as profound as the playwright tells us. And it is hard to believe that the titan of prophecy hadn’t thought to ask it in the thousands of years she’d been doing her grandson’s bidding. In fact, she hints at the question even before Agatha arrives on the scene.

Beck, Perez and Sadonna Croff play well off each other, though Croff’s responses lacked the vocal strength of her two scene partners and her lines were sometimes lost. However, all three were individually on target with their characters. Croff was the self-absorbed tourist who couldn’t see her own flaws. Beck was calm and in control of a conflict-heavy situation. Perez was loud and frustrated, and annoyed at her own fate.

“Generations,” by Andrew Head, features Sue Chmurynsky as a cursed grandmother, Sandy, who was followed by tornados throughout her entire life, Isabella Croff as the eight-year old Ellie, and Rachel Wilder, as Katie, daughter to Sandy and mother to Elie. They’re all waiting in a school for aid after a twister destroys their apartment. Sandy and Elie are comfortable and patient as the grandmother shares stories about her first tornado. Then, Katie storms into the scene, tense and worried about her daughter and unable to accept anything about the situation.

Head captures well the relationship between granddaughter and grandmother. The mother, though, seems a little too one-note to be truly effective. We see only her trauma and none of what might make her the mother who has produced such a calm, mature and resilient a child.

The juxtaposition of maturity levels among the characters is compelling to watch. The child is the most mature of the three, confident and relaxed and certain things are going to work out. The grandmother is the most child-like of the three, longing for a life she never gets. The mother lashes out at everyone but her daughter, wanting to protect Elie from the childhood she had and angry that it seems to be repeating.

Chmurynsky and Isabella Croff are at their best in the scene with just the two of them on stage. They relate well to each other and the scenes are touching. Croff does well at playing a confident young girl who is, in her character’s own words, “a trouper.” Wilder plays the one note she is given well.

O.G. Ueberroth’s “Family Traditions” is the strongest of the three plays. It feels authentic while still having unusual surprises and strong relationships between the three characters, especially the Abuela (Oralya Garza) and Tina (Rikki Perez). Tina is bringing her fiancé, Morgan (Jacob Crosby), to meet her grandmother and have dinner with them. Tina wants it to be fancier than the bean and rice dinner in the kitchen that her Abuela is planning. She wants to impress Morgan while the Abuela is insistent that he will see what they are really like. She also has a surprise in store for Tina. She poisons Morgan—all a part of a family tradition where the perspective mates of women in the family are tested to see whether they are really “the one.” If he is, he’ll fight off the poison. If not, well, there’s a problem.

All of this play is delivered with humor and quick pacing. Perez and Garza are perfect in their roles and bicker with an authenticity that is familiar to any loving relationship. Crosby spends most of his role face down on the table, but when he is awake, we believe in his love for Tina and his willingness to experience her life as it is.

Garza, whose pen name is Ueberroth and appears in her own show, clearly knows exactly what she wants to communicate and the play is a delightful one because of it.

In each of these three plays, it is the role of grandmother, more so than mother, that is central to the plot and the meaning. Each also has an element of the supernatural to it, a goddess from different traditions that the women appeal to for a change in their circumstances. All require certain sacrifices, and not everyone gets the results they wished for, even when they get what they asked for.

Perhaps the play should have been called “grandmother’s nature”

SHOW DETAILS:
Mother’s Nature
Ixion Ensemble
AA Creative Corridor, 1133 S. Washington Ave., Lansing
May 23-31; Saturdays at 8:00 p.m., Sundays at 7:00 p.m.
Price: $15.00 at door ($5.00 discount with donation of food)
517.775.4246
www.ixiontheatre.com