Review: Shattered Globe’s ‘Morning, Noon and Night’ packs in COVID-19 lessons
In the height of the pandemic, when we were all on lockdown, a bunch of us got sucked into new and sometimes wonky hobbies.
I have friends who learned to bake, studied music virtually and one who started collecting plants. I briefly got sucked into the world of Marie Kondo, a Japanese woman who made videos on her method of tidying-up our homes.
I never imagined what it would have been like to have Kondo in my house literally — but a similar circumstance gets imagined in “Morning, Noon, and Night,” making its Chicago premiere at Theater Wit in a production by Shattered Globe.
Written by Obie Award–winning playwright Kirsten Greenidge, “Morning, Noon, and Night,” isn’t the first play I’ve seen this year set in the shadows of the COVID-19 pandemic (“Black Cypress Bayou,” at Definition Theatre through March 15, also unfolds in this time). Here, we get the post-pandemic story of a single mom so overwhelmed with the loss of her husband, the estrangement of her eldest daughter, and the evolving dynamic of her now remote job — that she becomes lost in the literal and metaphorical clutter that has engulfed her life.
She’s struggling to embrace the “new normal.”
As someone who lived through the COVID times, I remember surgical face masks and the overuse of hand sanitizer. But these were not the only defining characteristics of post-pandemic America. This was also a time of George Floyd’s murder at the hands of Minneapolis police, and an era of mass protest, at home and abroad.
Despite its deliberate pandemic setting, and a Black mother-daughter at its heart, the play doesn’t tackle such themes. Thus the time period is reduced to overzealous health precautions and miscommunications during virtual work meetings.
But alas, here we are. In Boston, in what may be the most cluttered living room I’ve ever seen.
The set by Jackie Fox does a great job of conveying a sense of voyeurism. The theater walls are bare, allowing for a series of projections that let the audience see the characters’ smartphone screens. The set has a living living room on a raised platform with no walls, a conceit foreshadowing the lack of privacy for our main character.
The show is packed with dialogue about climate change and the ensuing doom just around the corner. It also wades into anti-consumerism, a keen take on post-pandemic America, since many people stayed home and ordered an absurd amount of packages from Amazon. Ultimately, Greenidge makes the case that people, and healthy relationships, are more valuable than material possessions.
And all that clutter? It’s the physical manifestation of the emotional baggage we keep with us. This production is about letting that stuff go and moving forward with the people you love.
These lessons are conveyed by a few high school kids. Dailyn (Emefa Dzodzomenyo) recognizes that her mother, Mia (Kristin E. Ellis), is having some serious problems. So she sets out to solve these issues in true Gen-Z form — with the internet. She creates an A.I. influencer named Miss Candice (Leslie Ann Sheppard) who autonomously creates social media content that promotes cleaning. She hopes those messages will inspire her mother.
The play tries to tackle a lot in 90 minutes, and there are times it feels a little inauthentic. A 15-year-old so obsessed with climate change that she believes the world will end in 12 years feels like a stretch. Especially when this precociously pessimistic kiddo is doomsday prophesying while simultaneously trying to get her mom to believe life is worth living. The two sides of this character feel contradictory.
But the show, directed by AmBer Montgomery, is enjoyable. Sheppard is enchanting as the Mary Poppins for grown ups, albeit as A.I. And Ellis’ performance as an overwhelmed single mom battling harsh circumstances at home and at (virtual) work are spot on.
It’s a tight 90-minutes and by the end, all of the issues are resolved in a tidy little bow. Almost too tidy.