Tragedy strikes Lock City Grand Theatre (photos)

This is Jessie.

Jessie is not a happy camper.

Her moving tale, penned by Marsha Norman, is the winner of the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

The Lock City Grand Theatre invites you to spend an evening with Jessie (Christine Mair) and her mother, Thelma (Teresa Miller) as Timothy Murphy directs them in 'Night, Mother.

This powerful two-person production runs January 24 through 26, and January 31 through February 2.

Catered by Gran Festa Ristorante, dinner theatre tickets are $50 (plus tax) per person or $25 (plus tax) for the show only.

Tickets for 'Night, Mother may be purchased at the Lock City Grand Theatre Box Office located at 651 Queen Street East.

For more information about this and future Lock City Grand Theatre productions, please call (705) 946-1500.

I was fortunate enough to grab a sneak peek at 'Night, Mother during a dress rehearsal.

See the photo gallery below for images of the production and one of Timothy Murphy's dog, Peanut.

Peanut has nothing to do with 'Night, Mother but he was too cute to not include in the gallery.

About 'Night, Mother

The scene is the living room/kitchen of a small house on an isolated country road, which is shared by Jessie and her mother.

Jessie’s father is dead; her loveless marriage ended in divorce; her absent son is a petty thief and ne’er-do-well; her last job didn’t work out and, in general, her life is stale and unprofitable.

As the play begins Jessie asks for her father’s service revolver and calmly announces that she intends to kill herself.

At first her mother refuses to take her seriously, but as Jessie sets about tidying the house and making lists of things to be looked after, her sense of desperate helplessness begins to build.

In the end, with the inexorability of genuine tragedy, she can only stand by, stunned and unbelieving, as Jessie quietly closes and locks her bedroom door and ends her profound unhappiness in one fatal, stunning and deeply disturbing moment -- a moment never to be forgotten by those who have witnessed, and come to understand, her plight.

"…honest, uncompromising, lucid, penetrating, well-written, dramatic, and…unmanipulatively moving…" - NY Magazine

"It is sparse and concise, introspective and penetrating, powerful and uncompromising, intense and intelligent, warm and theatrical. It is THE American tragedy." - New England Entertainment Digest

"Something I hadn’t seen in a long time happened at ’NIGHT, MOTHER: The audience still sat applauding after the house lights came up, as if waiting for the cast to come round and join them." - Village Voice

"…a shattering evening…" - NY Times

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