Well

I love this play. Just when you think you know where it's going it veers completely off course. The concept is brilliantly original, while still referencing, acknowledging, and sort of spoofing traditional theatrical devices. If you like theater that pushes boundaries in every way, you'll love this play. If you don't like theater that pushes boundaries in every way you will still love this play because, in its own way, "Well" also ridicules avant-gard-envelope-pushing-high-minded theater while simultaneously embodying the style. I will probably think about this play for a while, and I will definitely read it again.

A contemporary play that explores the elements of health, a trailblazing mother's love and acceptance of a self that was just plain odd. Full of wry humor, Well is a seemingly chaotic work with a good structure.

A joy reread and reread and reread

Lisa Kron's WELL was one of the best plays I saw in 2004. Kron combines the autobiographical style of solo performance with the meta-theatricality of Pirandello and comes up with an original, entertaining, and truly moving play.It's probably helpful to distinguish between Kron, the author of the play, and Lisa, the character in the play. In creating a play about her troubled relationship with her mother, Lisa self-servingly wants the audience to understand the situation from her point of view. But stories and characters take on lives of their own, and the play's humor and dramatic tension comes from Lisa's attempts to maintain control even as things increasingly spin out of control. And isn't that a little like life?Kron takes Lisa to task, satirizing her own vain attempts to separate herself from her wonderful/awful mother. And this is why the play is so powerful: it acknowledges our deep-rooted need to individuate from our parents, but also our equally deep-rooted need for connection and approval. What at first seems like a comic hatchet-job about someone's "mad mother" becomes a thoughtful exploration of how and why we create stories in order to understand ourselves and our world. WELL combines sentiment and insight, and it does so with real wit and theatrical bravado. It's a wonderful play.

I didn't get cast in my schools production

I stumbled upon the 1-star review below while searching for a copy of Well to use in a playwriting class. I wanted to show my students that it's possible to fracture theatrical forms and still be funny and smart and real and heartbreaking. I saw the final Broadway performance of Well (on Mother's Day, appropriately enough), and it was the best thing I'd seen on Broadway that year. Lisa Kron is a warm and generous performer, but the play is strong enough to stand without her. It's deeply personal and very funny, and it's must-see (or must-read) theatre for anyone who's ever struggled to come to terms with a difficult but loving parent or lived with the guilt and elation of breaking free, of being healthier and saner than the ones we left behind. A full, rich, complex, and constantly surprising play. If you can't see it, read it!And in response to Shakespeare's final comment below (Shakespeare??)--"Ms. Kron has inadvertently created a challenge to anyone wanting to stage the most sophomoric production on mother-daughter relationships." This is a bad thing?

I didn't get to see this play on Broadway, though I sure wish I had! It is so wonderfully written and it is easy to imagine the vivid scenes taking shape onstage. Really wonderful stuff about a solo artist working on her first multi-character play, breaking down her own emotional walls with the introduction of her mother. The play breaks so many wonderful conventions and addresses the importance of physical and mental health and how everyone exlpores this journey to "wellness" in their own way. It was marvelously funny, insightful, and heart-breaking at the same time. It's a play to read and reread and enjoy each time.

Theatrical maladiesWell @ the Longacre theatreA comedy/drama about the mother-daughter relationship is nothing new, but given the various dimensions and complexities of the subject, there could always be some undiscovered terrain waiting for a daring playwright to venture onto. Lisa Kron however not only fails to shed some fresh light on not-yet-seen perspectives or depths of this prime womanly connection, but she also becomes avaricious when it comes to sharing the particularities of her ties to her own mother.Personally, I don't need anyone explaining what I am about to see in a play. No wonder that Ms. Kron coming on stage at the beginning of this single act drama and doing just that did not impress me. Nor did her sarcastic instructions do the trick when she advised her audience on how to interpret the play. It should be viewed as a theatrical experiment that deals exclusively with issues of illness and wellness - she says. Nothing more than that. Ironically this forewarning does turn out to be a valid cautionary measure as after having sat through the play most will feel the production indeed did not manage to exceed beyond delineating the physical state of two people. The periodic re-emergence of the stepping out- when Lisa turns into a commentator and starts talking to the audience - seemed highly inappropriate and pointless in Well. Ms. Kron's attraction to this form of theatre, which she fancies both as playwright and performer, will only remind adults of the kind of children's plays where the wolf shares his intentions with the audience to eat little red riding hood's grandma prior to doing so.In addition to not being able to overcome the usual sentimentalization and simplistic depiction of her chosen subject, Ms. Kron has inadvertently created a challenge to anyone wanting to stage the most sophomoric production on mother-daughter relationships.

Good