Rhea (Amy Landecker) is suspicious when Maddie (Chloë Grace Moretz) and Caroline (River Lipe-Smith) show up at her door (photo by Emilio Madrid)
CAROLINE
MCC Theater
Susan & Ronald Frankel Theater
511 West Fifty-Second St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Through November 16, $137
mcctheater.org
“Hi there, what can I get for you?” a diner waitress asks a mother and daughter at the beginning of Preston Max Allen’s deeply affecting Caroline.
It might seem like a harmless, standard question, but it gets right to the heart of the show, making its world premiere at MCC Theater. The waitress is portrayed by Amy Landecker, who later plays Rhea, mother to Maddie (Chloë Grace Moretz) and grandmother to nine-year-old Caroline (River Lipe-Smith). Maddie and Caroline, who has a broken arm, are on their way from West Virginia to Evanston, Illinois, fleeing Maddie’s abusive boyfriend and seeking help from Maddie’s parents, who have not seen her in a long time and don’t even know she has a daughter.
Maddie, who has been sober for eight years, had a troubled childhood: drinking at fifteen, doing drugs, sleeping around, stealing money from her parents, leaving home at seventeen, and getting pregnant. She hasn’t spoken to her mother and father in eleven years. When she shows up at the house she grew up in, her mother is surprised to see her and is cold and untrusting, especially when Maddie is demanding of what she wants, and doesn’t want, from her.
“Do you think I want to be here?” Maddie says. “If you don’t want us here, we’ll go. But I was hoping that maybe we could be mature about this.” Rhea, trying to suss out the situation, states, “Do you think we wanted this? Do you think we didn’t do every single thing in our power to help you? We fought for years for you. We hemorrhaged our savings trying to give you a recovery you didn’t want to have. . . . You have no idea what we went through. You can’t possibly remember what you went through, so don’t come into this house and try to tell me about my intentions.”
Rhea agrees to let them stay for one night until they agree on an acceptable plan going forward. She uses much of the time to get to know Caroline, who is trans, something that Maddie initially keeps from her mother. The three generations of women try to figure out what comes next as they argue about the past and prepare for a better future.
Caroline (River Lipe-Smith) and Maddie (Chloë Grace Moretz) try to figure out what’s next in potent world premiere at MCC (photo by Emilio Madrid)
Allen (We Are the Tigers, Storytime) writes compelling, honest dialogue that avoids the trappings of Hallmark movie-of-the-week melodrama, while the direction by Tony winner David Cromer (A Case for the Existence of God, Our Town) is swift, always in motion, on Lee Jellinek’s set, which is divided into three changing sections that include a diner table, motel bedroom, living room, and kitchen, expertly lit by Tyler Micoleau.
Landecker (Bug, Transparent) and Moretz (The Library, Kick-Ass) are terrific as Rhea and Maddie, who have work to do if they are going to reestablish their family; it takes a while to adjust to Lipe-Smith’s delivery (A Christmas Carol, Kinky Boots) but it smooths out significantly as the play goes on.
There are no men in the play; Caroline’s father is dead, Maddie’s father is away on business, and her ex-boyfriend is out of the picture. For ninety minutes, three women discuss responsibility, individuality, and what it means to be a mother and a daughter. Allen and Cromer provide no easy answers as the characters face difficult decisions that are not about to result in facile conclusions wrapped up in a neat bow.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]