'night, Mother

It is a moment that must happen, yet we continue to believe that it won't, as in the highest tragedy. 'night Mother proceeds with the relentless force of a juggernaut, displaying not a single moment of artifice or contrivance or self-consciousness. In the absolute truthfulness of her treatment and dialogue, in the unforced poetry of her modern speech, and in her capacity to create major climaxes out of petty quotidian affairs, Miss Norman has followed the path of Chekhov, who believed that the great stakes of modern drama must emerge from under the trivial course of the daily routine. Nothing reinforces one's faith in the power and importance of the theater more than the emergence of an authentic universal playwright, one who speaks to the concerns and experiences of all humankind. Marsha Norman is the genuine article - an American writer with the courage to look unflinchingly into the black holes from which we normally turn our faces. - Robert Brustein, The New Republic