Actress brings feeling to stage mother role

By Diane Windeler
Special to the Express-News

What happens to a devoted stage mother whose child is a married adult and no longer in "the business"?

In Helen McAvity's comedy "Everybody Has to be Somebody," the widowed mother has shifted her focus to taking care of her daughter and her family, but she secretly yearns for that other life.

Her efforts to make that happen, and the realities she finally must confront and accept, are at the core of the heartwarming production now playing at the Steven Stoli Playhouse.

Sandy Schwartz shines as Maggie, who dotes on her teenage grandson, Tim (Austin Bonilla), and spoils her son-in-law (Les Steubing) with culinary delights. She's good-natured and funny, yet her attitude toward daughter Frances (Catherine Hayes), a former B-movie actress deeply involved in charity work, seems ambivalent. The reasons become clear after Maggie's furtive plot to secure a TV role for Frances backfires.

While there is plenty of humor along the way, director Larry Schwartz carefully gauges the pacing to culminate in a cathartic second-act scene where mother and daughter strip away the veneers that have hidden their feelings for so many years. Here, as Frances laments her lost childhood and Maggie admits she had — and still has — no life of her own, both actresses are disturbingly convincing.

Anthony Garant and Alex Hoeffler are well cast as Tim's buddies, completing a threesome who tease one another and indulge in some amusing pop-psych at the top of each act. Martha Prentiss capably completes the ensemble as Maggie's sympathetic friend, also a former stage mother.

The message of finding and being one's own self is none too subtle, but it rings true, nonetheless.