Playwright: Colm Toibin. At: Victory Gardens Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln Ave. Tickets: 773-871-3000; www.victorygardens.org; $20-$60. Runs through: Dec. 14
A mother tells her story, still fiercely grieving and angry years after she was practically forced to witness the public execution of her son on trumped-up political charges. Her deep hurt is complicated by two sharply-felt wounds. The first was her son's aloofness when she reunited with him two years after he left home. As she describes it, he was almost silent and imperious with neither words nor comfort for her. He had gathered followers whom she describes as "misfits ( who ) could not look a woman in the eye. ... Something was missing inside each one of them." Her son acts without caution and makes public scenes and does not heed warnings of danger.
The second wound was self-inflicted: She fled from his execution before he was dead when his followers told her that she, too, was in danger. She's feels manipulated and guilty over her panic, and the fact that she never saw her son's body or burial. In the years since, the followers have been her keepersa loaded wordand now are telling stories she knows are untrue. They come to her, careless about her sensitivities and her household, and pressure her to alter her memories of events, which they want to record. "They think if it is written it will change the world," she says.
The woman, of course, is Mary although her son never is named. "Something within me will break if I say his name," she says. "Before I die I will say his name." This is not the Virgin Mary of Christian belief: she implies that there was nothing miraculous about her son's conception or birth, no wise men and no resurrection. Her son's body, she says, "is dust. He will not come back." This Mary is not a proto-Christian. Still, this work is deeply spiritual and profoundly human. The exquisite yet plain-spoken text and the compelling, immersive performance by Linda Reiter, directed by Dennis Zacek, carry this work far beyond its breaks with New Testament orthodoxy. The Testament of Mary is a cry of pain by a mother and religious myths are meaningless to her. "He died to redeem the world," she is told. Her response, in the play's shattering final words, is "It was not worth it!" Irish author Colm Toibin intriguingly casts many of the events as intra-family, with Mary's own cousins joining the condemnation of her son. The play also carefully cautions against demagoguery and zealotry.
Reiter's performance is Jeff Award caliber: bravura, unfussy, ferocious, skeptical, heartfelt and hard-edged. Whatever your religious convictions, you'll be convinced this Mary is telling her personal truth. Christopher Ash's scenery and beautiful projections enhance the play's mood and spiritual qualities.