In one-woman show, Missy Moore delivers a powerful performance as a mother forced far out of her comfort zone
Welcome to Trisha Lee’s kitchen, where she invites you in with a glass of iced tea and tells you all about the little Texas town in which she lives. It’s the kind of place with white picket fences, she tells us, where everyone goes to church on Sunday and she works a mindless job at the local hospital.
Pretty quiet. Pretty boring. And then …
It takes a special blend of talent, bravery and stage experience to pull off a one-woman show, and Moore possesses all three in spades. A production of the And Toto Too theater company — an organization dedicated to the theatrical work of women — and directed by ATT’s Susan Lyles, “The Pink Unicorn” lands in an America where our many differences seem to grow by the day. On the other end of the scale from the angry crowds and Twitter rants is our home, where sometimes these divisive social issues knock on our doors in unexpected and unwelcome ways.
Photo: Darren Smith
What do you do when your son comes out as gay when your local pastor tells you every week that’s a sin that guarantees a one-way trip to hell? Or your daughter tells you she’s a lesbian and, by the way momma, here’s my new girlfriend?
In this timely script by Elise Forier Edie, Trisha must confront her daughter Joline’s newfound gender identity which is, she informs her stunned mother, neither male nor female, gay nor straight.
“I’m gender queer, momma. Look it up.”
And by the way, call me “Jo” from here on out.
All of these conversations, of course, are recounted by Trisha, who walks the audience through recent events with a mixture of incredulity, homespun wisdom, a mother’s love and a growing understanding of the seismic shift under way not only under way in her own home but in the whole town.
And yes, Moore really does hand out a few glasses of iced tea at the top of the show. It’s a nice touch that establishes a rapport with the audience. At Friday night’s performance at the DCPA’s cozy 1245 Champa Studio, her first glass went to her sister Mandy, and Moore got to deliver some lines about Trisha’s mother to her own mom Wendy, also there with her dad Bob. It’s hard to imagine a more intimate night of theater than this, and as scary as it is to go onstage by yourself, Moore no doubt felt the love in the room as she inhabited a character far removed from her own life.
And pretty much killed it.
Buckle up
Most parents have at some point wondered how they’d react if a son or daughter came out to them. It may be easier to put it in context if you’re a parent in Marin County vs. one in West Texas, but the realignment in your heart and mind about who your son or daughter now is, well, that’s jarring no matter where you live. As Trisha, Moore walks us through a version of the five stages of grief. There’s anger, denial, bargaining, depression and eventual acceptance. But the playwright isn’t done with her yet, for even as she’s come to accept the fact that her 14-year-old daughter is no longer identifying as a girl, her own mother and the other inhabitants of the town are nowhere near as accepting.
So when the principal of Jo’s school denies her request to start an after-school Gay-Straight Alliance, Trisha’s reluctant acceptance of Jo’s new gender neutrality morphs into full-fledged momma-bear protection. But when she picks up the phone and rings up Enid — the only other gay person she knows in town — it sets in motion a series of events and blowback that knocks her little family off its axis.
Trisha is a widow, and with husband Earl long gone and her mother and Pastor Dick (“Yeah, I know” she jokes) aligned against her, she quickly learns she needs to rely on the kindness of strangers. She’s being inexorably drawn into a battle she has zero interest in fighting, but her love for her daughter compels her to take the field. At one point, Moore confronts the audience with a direct question about how far all parents will go to protect their children.
We’re all with her, and as the battle reaches its climax, we’ve seen Moore transform Trisha from a bored widow in a one-horse town to a game fighter whose expansive view of the world has changed her heart and opened her eyes.
This is one of those shows you wish everyone could see, especially all those MAGA nuts out there who can’t see past their own front porch. The format of the one-woman shows works exceedingly well for this story as it exposes us to the tormented emotions of one woman trying to navigate her way through unknown and turbulent waters.
Moore has the audience eating out of her hand the whole way as she delivers laughter, tears and everything in between to depict not only the depth of a mother’s love, but the struggle many Christians face when what their church tells them conflicts with what their heart (and Jesus, BTW) does.
As far as what the pink unicorn is all about, I’ll let Moore tell you. The show runs through Nov. 17.
Quick note: I’ve known Missy since she was a kid and we appeared together in a few shows at the Breckenridge Backstage Theatre in the’90s. Her mom Wendy was my drama teacher in high school and my director in a number of shows. Her dad Bob and I have appeared together onstage in dozens of performances. But one needn’t know Missy or her family to see what an accomplished actress she is, and this show is a great platform for her talent.
Leave A Comment