A Daughter’s Loyalty Shines Through Song
LAURA COLLINS-HUGHESFebruary 21, 2014: Deep into Jonatha Brooke’s solo theater piece the other night, a gentle wave of sniffles swelled through the audience at the Duke on 42nd Street, where a daughter’s love and loyalty were on tender display. With My Mother Has 4 Noses, this singer-songwriter has ventured into playwriting and performance that are achingly personal. In a haunted and haunting play with music, Ms. Brooke is bearing witness, recounting the descent into dementia of her mother, Darren Stone Nelson, and her experience of caring for Ms. Nelson in the last years of her life. “Oh, my poor broken mother,” Ms. Brooke says. “Oh, my poor broken heart.” Your heart may crack a little, too, not only from the unavoidably sad, yet poignantly funny narrative Ms. Brooke has created so beautifully out of mourning, but also from the artistic demands she makes on herself here as writer, musician and actor.
READ THE REVIEW