I took my mom to Like Mother, Like Daughter,
“This doesn’t happen. It does not happen!”
That was my mother, Sue Maga, gesturing with her hands and leaning toward the centre of the ottoman that separated us last Saturday evening.
Earlier that day, we saw Like Mother, Like Daughter, a beloved production created by Toronto’s Why Not Theatre and the U.K.’s Complicite Creative Learning. To call it a play would unfairly give it a selfconscious veneer; it’s unscripted and very real, its cast made up of real-life mothers and daughters who sit at a table and alternate asking and answering questions: “How important is religion in your life?” “If you could take me anywhere in the world, where would you take me?” “If you could eat one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be?” “Was having children as fulfilling as everyone said it would be?”
Despite being a theatre critic, I haven’t gone to many plays with my mother or my father, Bill, or my mother’s twin sister, Sandy Healy, who both accompanied us to Like Mother, Like Daughter that day. We capped it off with another activity we don’t often do: talking about art, family and our own dynamics.
“Whether it’s a son or a daughter, that’s the way it is. You see the Beaver Cleaver scenario when you’re sitting around the kitchen table talking: it doesn’t happen,” Sue said in answer to my question about whether the conversations that occurred in Like Mother, Like Daughter could happen on their own. “Life just gets in the way.”
Inside the 918 Bathurst Centre for Culture, Arts and Education, a wooden table and chairs are accented with a plant centrepiece and a hanging light fixture, to increase the homey feel in the wood-panelled former church. It still feels private when the motherdaughter pairs take the stage two by two, even with audience members on all sides.
Just how deep the conversations go is the luck of the draw (participants always have the chance to pass on an undesirable question), but even a discussion about a daughter’s love of fries has a ripple of drama, from the echo of conversations past that the audience wasn’t there for. The participants are chosen for their ability to avoid performing and just be real.
“We didn’t hear any major struggles really. It was all just normal conflicts and how moms react in those situations,” my aunt said. “But I think mothers tend to be peacekeepers.”
When I ask whether they’d ever want to answer personal questions in front of a group of strangers, both my mom and my aunt are willing. But born and raised in small-town Ontario, they had another objection: “We’re so boring! I’m so lucky, I’ve never had hardship, only had good times with being a mom. There isn’t going to be anyone making a movie about my life,” my mother said.
Another central part of Like Mother, Like Daughter is the immigrant story: the mothers were all born outside of Canada and the daughters were all born here.
“I loved it,” Sue said. “What was most clear to me was the fact that moms are moms, no matter what race or culture or anything.” My mom and aunt overwhelmingly agreed with some of the major themes that emerged from Like Mother, Like Daughter: the sacrifices that moms make without seeing them as sacrifices (sometimes to their own detriment), putting family first and struggling with letting their children go.
“It’s validation, validation of your feelings,” said my dad, looking up from his iPad, speaking up for the first time.
Now that the term “toxic masculinity” is part of our common vernacular, an exercise like this seems primed to teach emotional honesty in intergenerational men. This is the second time Like Mother, Like Daughter has appeared in Toronto, but perhaps there can be a companion piece next time, Like Father, Like Son.
Here’s our own mini Like Mother, Like Daughter Q&A:
Carly: What would you do in life if money, time and education didn’t matter?
Sue: My first thought is that I would help my children do what they want to do. Or I would have a big house in a couple of countries where my family could come together and be happy. One in Ottawa, our home, one would be maybe in France. One in Belize. Whatever I would do it would be so we could be together. Well that was the worst answer in the world.
Carly: Was having children as fulfilling as everyone said it would be?
Sue: In our generation, nobody really said that having kids would be fulfilling. And I was really nervous about having kids. And I remember when I discovered I was pregnant with Erica I was petrified, and it wasn’t unexpected or anything. So this business about it being fulfilling, I don’t think I ever got that. I knew it would be part of getting married, but I was petrified.
Sue: What’s more important, money or happiness?
Carly: Happiness. I think you can get some happiness from money, but not the other way around.
Sue: Do you think people are inherently good?
Carly: No. I think people are inherently neutral. I think goodness comes from a level of self-awareness and your ability to recognize when other people have done good things for you, and wanting to pass that on and receive the warmth that comes with that. But I do think that most people learn that so deeply it feels instinctive.
Like Mother, Like Daughter is presented by the Koffler Centre of the Arts until Nov. 24. See theatrewhynot.org for information.
Carly Maga is a Toronto-based theatre critic and a freelance contributor for the Star. She alternates the Wednesday Matinée column with Karen Fricker. Follow her on Twitter: @RadioMaga