Go Into The Light

"We all say we love someone... Words are the bridge we build across the void that separates us... desperate to cling to something. 'I love you' is the best we've come up with for pretending it isn't there."

-- "Mothers and Sons"

Brenda Nemec and Ed McClure might seem to be talking about two different plays.

McClure, the director, sees the humor in "Mothers and Sons," just as he sees the humor in pretty much every situation.

"It's hilarious," he says of the Terrence McNally script, which opened on Broadway in 2014 and was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Play. "You're going to laugh all the way through."

Nemec, who plays Katharine Gerard, the pivotal character, says rehearsals have been so intense that she and her castmate -- and longtime friend -- Joey Farmer are no longer buddies. They've agreed to resume their friendship when the show is over.

"This role has been difficult," she admits. "I don't understand Katharine. How she can be so uninformed, so in the dark, so unloving and so unforgiving? How can she still be that cold? I don't know people like that!"

"I will be honest, this is probably a script more like TheatreSquared would do than what a community theater would do," McClure says of the Arkansas Public Theatre production opening tonight. "It deals with issues that are uncomfortable for some people, I suppose. But it's exceedingly timely, given some of our presidential candidates care more about bathrooms that real issues in the world."

"Mothers and Sons" revolves around Katharine and her relationship with her son, Andre, who died of AIDS in the 1990s.

"She never accepted him as a gay man," Nemec takes up the story. "She shows up on the doorstep of his lover, played by Joey, still angry, still bitter, still cold and unaccepting, only to find out that he's remarried and they've adopted a child. The little boy is the glue that brings everybody together."

"I grew up believing in equal rights," says Gregory Mack, an eighth-grader at the Arkansas Arts Academy who plays Bud, Will and Cal's child. "The family in the play is just like any other with their own problems but a very tight bond. It does a very good job in showing that there is nothing wrong with being gay, and people should be treated equally. Times have changed, and our generation is more accepting."

"The great thing about getting a 13-year-old is he has a breadth of knowledge to the point where you don't have to explain to him," McClure says. "An 8-year-old would probably not understand. And this kid is talented!"

"This is my first time performing outside of school, yet the experience was not overwhelming because the production was planned well and ran smoothly," Gregory says. "The whole group made me feel as a part of a team and supported me all the way through. My director and cast even came to see me perform in a show at my school. I learned a lot about professional theater and hope to do something like this again in the near future."

Nemec says Bud is the linchpin of the whole story. In him, Katharine sees something of her son, even though the two had never even met.

"She does redeem herself in the end because the little boy loves her.

"To me the great story is if you don't find a happy place to love and to accept, you're going to grow old and be mean and bitter. You've got to find that place in your life," Nemec says.

"The critics seemed to love the fact that the Broadway production allowed the humor to come through and did not demonize this woman Brenda is playing," McClure adds. "The production treated her with the same tolerance she was not showing. I always think it's funny when well-meaning liberals are intolerant of intolerance. So in this script, we have some well-meaning liberals who are tolerant of her intolerance.

"Any time you're remembering somebody who is gone, you have good memories and sad memories, but how we deal with that loss and soldier on is what I think is very redeeming about the script."

NAN What's Up on 05/06/2016