Mama and her boys

By: Jeannette de Beauvoir, September 12, 2011

What happens when a mother realizes that both her sons are gay—and will soon be leaving her?

Performers Ethan Paulini, Wendy Williams, and Christopher Sidoli will be glad to tell you, via an eclectic mix of 25 songs from Broadway, pop, and Motown repertoires, to folk, rock, disco, and more … all within one hour!

A show that began as part of the Winter Series at the Cape Rep Theater in Brewster is spending its summer and fall in Provincetown in the new Counter Productions theater in Whalers Wharf on Commercial Street.

Conceived and written by the performers themselves, with no dialogue (but lots of communication), Mama and Her Boys will have you humming, smiling, crying … and wanting more.

Paulini, Williams, and Sidoli are all veterans of the Cape Rep stage and have brilliant musical and theatrical resumes, and their experience shows. It’s not surprising that they are close offstage as well: that sort of stage intimacy is difficult to manufacture.

Mama dearest

All three agree that the show has caused them to examine the role that motherhood plays in each of their lives.

While the show is fun and often even silly, it’s clear that it’s underpinned by thoughtfulness and caring.

Williams is dynamic and yet controlled as she goes from lullaby to belting out Broadway; her extraordinary eyes seem to communicate as much as does her voice. Paulini is a clown drawn in to occasional pensiveness, and Sidoli is sweet, tender, and surprising. Their solos are brilliant but that doesn’t keep them from cooperating in close and beautiful harmonies.

The three work through Mama’s attachment to her sons and their desire to start lives of their own, and bring the three performers—and the audience—to the ultimate question: what kind of life will Mama create for herself? How will she become something other than someone’s mother?

Mama and Her Boys premiered as part of the Cape Rep Winter Series with a sold-out initial run. Since then, it’s played an engagement in Provincetown, on Mother's Day in Falmouth at the Casino Wharf FX, and a return engagement at Cape Rep, and now back in Provincetown. Discussions are underway to bring the show to Boston, New York, and … well, that would be giving it away!

 

Mama and Her Boys

Counter Productions, Whaler’s Wharf

237 Commercial Street, Provincetown

Friday, September 16 at 8pm

Sunday, September 18 at 2pm

Saturday, September 24 at 4pm and 7pm (ASL interpreted)

Sunday, September 25 at 2pm

Monday, October 10, Tuesday, October 11, Wednesday, October 12, and Thursday, October 13 at 7pm

Friday, October 14 at 8pm

Saturday, October 15 at 2pm 

Saturday, October 15 at 8pm