Calm Down Mother

Calm Down Mother Summary | Detailed Summary

Calm Down Mother is a one act play about the phases and ultimate value of women's lives, exhibited through different characterizations and roles. The various characters are represented by only three women, who change roles during the different sections. When the play opens, the three women are huddled together to suggest some plant life form and remain that way during a reading by another woman who is not in view.

The reading speaks of three primal, one-celled creatures, which float and are propelled by the force of the water in which they live, until, at one point, they take root at the shore line instead of being washed out to sea again. It is then that one part breaks away and stretches bravely toward the sun.

The woman, who represents the part that has broken away, steps forward and announces that she is Margaret Fuller, a fact validated by her father, many years ago. With passion, the woman states that she has a brain and she accepts the entire universe. The other two women now chant in the words of Fuller's father that she should grab the universe while she can.

The women freeze momentarily, and then transition into the characters of Sophie, an old woman, Esther, her daughter, and another girl. The scene is now apparently inside a store, and the girl has asked for two six packs of ale. Sophie comments on the girl's beautiful hair and reminisces on the time when her own was just as lustrous, before time and illness changed it.

The girl's hair and skin also remind Sophie of her own mother, for whom she had cared until her death. The three women are combing each other's hair. Finally, the girl cannot bear the pallor of grief that has arisen and pushes the other two women away.

The women are no specific characters now. One woman is furious about disassociating from the disapproval of other people. Pacing the stage, she throws symbolic anger toward another of the women. This next woman declares a desire to hit. The rage continues, leaving her in a stroke-like stage, needing to sit on her hands in order to avoid further violent behavior.

The mood changes again and the third woman steps forward with a monologue about the futility of all the facts that add up to make a woman's life. Perhaps if she were to write everything down and make a list of everything she wouldn't seem so small. At least then she could review the listing of her life when she feels insignificant and maybe not feel so alienated. The other two women laugh hysterically and push her down to the floor, where she remains, while the other two women transition into Nancy and Sally, two sisters in a New York apartment.

Recovering from an abusive divorce, Sally has moved into an apartment in Greenwich Village and Nancy has come to visit and lend support even though she is herself in a volatile emotional state. Nancy has always been the stalwart of the family but seems to be on the verge of emotional collapse, having just learned of their mother's terminal bone cancer. To Nancy's way of thinking, her petulant father had a heart attack just so his illness will surpass his wife's diagnosis, and he can be admitted into the hospital, securing all the family's attention for himself. Devastated by the news of their mother's illness, the two women embrace for comfort, and then freeze in the moment.

The woman who has been lying on the floor rises and recites a small poem about girlhood. Turning her back, she can no longer see the other two women, who assume the characters of Mrs. Tweed and Mrs. Watermellon, two friends in a nursing home. Lamenting the passing of time, Mrs. Watermellon reveals that the secret of life is really simple; it starts in a woman's heart and moves lower to her belly and bursts forth once a month, but now there is nothing. Mrs. Tweed chides her on letting go of such thinking, but Mrs. Watermellon still resists old age, and her anger exhibits in foul language at her friend and especially at the nurse who has brought the daily hot cereal. Their refusal to eat prompts the nurse to coerce them, as though they are children. Standing to face her, the two women bar the nurse from leaving by creating a barrier, like the doors on a subway car.

Finally, the nurse is able to emerge and all three women are now prostitutes named Momo, Felicia, and Inez, who are dressing and putting on makeup for the upcoming night. Momo and Felicia argue over their own money making skills, and finally, Inez, who is a bit older, yells at them to save their energy for their work and not waste it on each other. "Calm down, mother," Felicia tells her, knowing that she can put an end to Momo by telling Ricky, their pimp, about Momo's hiding tips from him. Momo's secret behavior could jeopardize all of them with Ricky, so Inez, who is responsible for them, vows to give Momo one more chance to improve, and she promises that she will.

Frozen in a tender moment for a few seconds, the women again break apart; this time becoming a woman and her two daughters, Sue and Sak, who are washing dishes in the kitchen of a tenement house. The daughters are discussing the furor around birth control when Mother Nature is a form of birth control every month and no one challenges that method of avoiding pregnancy.

Pleading for them to stop arguing, their mother asks the daughters to consider that the Bible says not to spill your seed on the ground. Sue, who is more forthright in her opinions, challenges her mother to think about God's master plan. God has planted all the viable seeds in men and women and His own plan for bodily functions wastes most of them, so why should priests and politicians argue with it.

At twenty years of age, Sue argues that she has thirty more years of egg production, which adds up to the possibility of 360 babies. Of course, that is a physical impossibility, but she wonders about her obligation to save those eggs, because of their potential value. If they are not saved, logically, that too is a sin. She tries to get her sister and mother to understand that, obviously, God knows that each egg will not reach a higher purpose, so why do the religious zealots challenge the idea of birth control, when God has already built it into a woman's bodily functions.

This form of rebellious thinking will not be tolerated and Sue is kicked out of the house. Amid accusations of their being naïve and archaic in their thinking, Sue affirms that she has everything she needs for the next thirty years right in her own belly.

For the last time, the three women break character and assume the roles of Woman One, Woman Two, and Woman Three. They alternately rub their stomachs and the sides of their bodies while chanting about their bellies, bodies, and eggs declaring that they are enough. Turning in unison, the question is raised and hangs in the air as to whether these things really are enough, and the stage goes dark.