Fresh from its Jessica Lange-led success on Broadway, Mother Play makes its Australian debut with Sigrid Thornton in the title role.

She’s remarkable as an impeccably turned out but messed up woman based on American playwright Paula Vogel’s own mother. Yael Stone and Ash Flanders are also excellent as the children inspired by Vogel and her brother.

The trio interpret their characters from the 1960s to the present. They change with the times, which this MTC production directed by Lee Lewis particularly evoke through costumes.

Yael Stone, Sigrid Thornton and Ash Flanders in Mother Play. Photo © Brett Boardman

Subtitled A Play in Five Evictions, Mother Play opens with Phyllis Herman drinking gin while her 14-year-old son Carl and 12-year-old daughter Martha unpack the family’s humble possessions. Abandoned by her violent, philandering husband, Phyllis has secured a cheap rental and a job, but that’s about the limit of her mothering.

Despite her rebellion, from alcoholism to occasional bursts of foul language, she is fundamentally a woman of stylish female conformity, always striving for a better life.

Consequently, through the years and evictions of various kinds, daily calls to her mother and lots of gin,...