MUD at the ACTOR’S COMPANY

Pauline Adamek – LA Weekly

There’s a certain fragility mixed with permanence in Maria Irene Fornes’ melancholy tragedy Mud, and the characters seem to exist beyond the performance that unfolds before us. In seventeen short (sometimes brutally short) scenes, Fornes depicts a squabbling couple, Lloyd (Riley Smith) and Mae (Annie Hamilton), who seem stuck in some kind of rural poverty. While Lloyd appears slightly mentally retarded, Mae is merely illiterate and wants to better herself and get out. Her romance with unsympathetic local fellow Henry (A.J. Helfet) sparks jealousy from Lloyd. But then the worm turns…
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