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Marsha Norman's Buenas Noches, Mama

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The play of ‘Night Mother was written in 1981, and premiered at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, starring Kathy Bates and Anne Pitoniak as Jessie and Mama in December, 1982. This production then opened on Broadway at the John Golden Theatre, directed by Tom Moore, on March 31, 1983, and closed on February 26, 1984, after 380 performance. It received 4 Tony Award nominations. In the 1986 film version, Marsha Norman adapted her own play and wrote the screenplay. There was a Broadway revival that opened at the Royale Theatre on November 14, 2004, and closed on January 9, 2005, after 65 performances and 26 previews. On March 12, 2010, the Mexican version titled "Buenas Noches, Mama" debuted. Since then, the play has received …show more content…

Her mother's religious views kept Marsha Norman from doing lots of things, like playing with other children. She said once that her loneliness as a child is the reason she became a writer. In Georgia, Norman began to work as a journalist after graduation, writing articles, reviews, plays, and films for the Louisville Times. Getting Out (1977), Norman's first play, was written because a theatre director asked her to write a play for the Actors Theatre. She found that she could draw on her experiences working with disturbed adolescents at Kentucky Central State Hospital. This background enabled her to “create a vivid portrait of a woman parolee who served an eight-year prison sentence for robbery, kidnapping, and manslaughter.” Getting Out was voted the best new play produced by a regional theatre by the American Theatre Critics Association and was shown in a shortened version in The Best Plays of 1977-1978. She wrote some one-act plays for the Actors Theatre and another full-length play, Circus Valentine (1979), before 'Night, Mother (1983), which won the Pulitzer Prize along with several other awards and four Tony Award nominations. In 1987, she published her first novel, The Fortune Teller. Some of her most popular plays include Getting Out (1977), the Broadway musical The Secret Garden (1991), The Red Shoes (1993), Trudy Blue (1994), and The Color Purple …show more content…

She’s pale, afflicted with epilepsy, unable to hold a job, abandoned by her husband, and plagued by a delinquent son. Throughout the whole play, she is wearing slacks and a long black sweater. Her decision to kill herself, the whole discussion in the play, is a positive act—an attempt to take control of her life. She really only cares about leaving this world to get order back into her life, but makes sure to help her mother before she does leave. Thelma is Jessie’s mother. She is in her late fifties or early 60’s. She has begun to feel her age, takes it easy and lets other people do a lot for her. She also has a mental sturdiness that allows her to believe that things are what she says they are. She only wants her daughter to stay alive, and will say anything to make her

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