In 1969, singer Peggy Lee popularized the Leiber and Stoller song “Is That All There Is?” which reflects on the storyteller’s house burning down along with all her possessions and history.  Answering her own question, she adds “Then let’s keep dancing.”  Most people with desultory or even tragic lives would figuratively respond the same way.  Not so Jessie in ‘night Mother.  Even though her epilepsy has been held in check by medication for a year, she has decided that her time has come.

Playwright Marsha Norman’s two hander won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1983 along with other nominations and awards, and its various realizations have attracted some of Broadway and Hollywood’s finest actresses to participate in this intense drama which takes place in real time.  The premise of the play, plausible but unlikely, opens the door to many philosophical and religious questions.  It is a quieting play but undeniably thoughtful and provocative.

Altarena Playhouse courageously takes up the gauntlet and gets a fine performance from a placid, reconciled, and determined Kelly Rinehart as Jessie, whose glazed detachment is disarming.  Equally engaging is an agitated Billie J. Simmons as her mother Thelma who wavers between despair and rage, trying to find what is really behind Jessie’s decision and hoping to disarm it.  Their gripping exchanges will fully satisfy patrons who seek theater that goes beyond taking a funny pill.  Shawnj West directs the claustrophobic and breathsucking story.

Thelma, Jessie’s mother who relies on Jessie for a number of things is first in denial and then disbelief when hearing her daughter’s plan and its closeness – that night.  But Jessie is resolute.  She has suffered the condition that has contributed to her inability to keep a job.  She has no friends.  Her husband left her long ago.  Her son is worse than a no-count and a prime prospect for prison time.  Her father, whom she loved more than her mother did has died.  Even though her situation has become pretty static, it is at a quality of life that offers her no joy, and in her opinion there is no realistic prospect for betterment.  Deciding on her death is the only matter of consequence that she exercises control over.

While Thelma objects to Jessie’s plan, she is unable to take the high moral ground.  Among the revelations that occur in these last minutes before the scheduled event, we find that she has actually contributed to Jessie’s distress in multiple ways.  Meanwhile, the clock on the wall ticks on inexorably. Yet, maybe like Scheherazade who saved her own life with nightly storytelling in One Thousand and One Nights, Thelma can delay Jessie’s plan indefinitely.

Jessie speaks of death as being quiet and peaceful, but the fact is that nobody on earth has any insight into a “soul’s” cognition in death, as by definition, nobody has died and then lived to talk about it.  To non-believers however, many feel that we die each night, going to sleep without knowing if we will awaken.  Thelma’s arguments are feeble, though one that resonates concerns uncertainty.  Her disrupter is sharing with Jessie the possibility that being dead might be like having an alarm go off in the morning that you can’t get to stop ringing.

The existential issues that can arise in this situation are reminiscent of all night talk-a-thons that college students have (or, at least, did back in the day).  First is the matter of agency and the legality of suicide, though it doesn’t get consideration in the play.  While most states have abandoned the notion of suicide being illegal, attempted suicide, i.e., failure to succeed, is.  So is assisting suicide in most venues, but defining assistance is a slippery slope.  In any event, why should individuals not have the authority to decide whether to live or die?

Another matter is the religious one.  For those who believe in heaven and hell specifically, perhaps the fear of eternal damnation keeps some people from pulling their own plug.  Plus, there is the concern about irreversibility.  Why not wait and see what happens here on earth?

So if a person does make the decision to end their own life, what then as the clock counts down?  Do they reflect only on the great issues of existence?  Do they leave instructions or supportive messages to loved ones?  Do they focus on mundane things just to pass the time?  Do they reveal those things that had remained hidden?  Whatever thoughts and discussions that mother and daughter will have will play out in ‘night Mother within a 90-minute run time.

On the surface, Jessie is at peace with her decision.  The fact is that if she enters her bedroom with the intent of shooting herself, several outcomes are possible, from success to damaging failure or from change of heart to declaring that her scheme was just a scare tactic.  Which will it be?

‘night Mother, written by Marsha Norman, is produced by Altarena Playhouse and performed on its stage at 1409 High Street, Alameda, CA through June 28, 2026.