Theater Online - New York Theater Reviews

When college junior Shelley McAnn (Caroline Cooney) first walks into molecular biology professor Henry Stein’s (Michael De Nola) office, she’s bold and brash, with no clue that anything she says or does might be considered inappropriate in front of a potential thesis advisor… or she doesn’t care.  She wants to win prizes, she wants to be noticed, and she’ll do whatever it takes, even if that means impregnating herself with the sperm of a chimpanzee to create a human-chimp hybrid baby in her uterus.

In Sweet, Sweet Motherhood, now through July 31^st at HERE, Playwright Jeremy Kareken, in collaboration with Princeton University Molecular Biology Professor Lee M. Silver, introduces a handful of thought-provoking topics but never quite follows any of them through.  The play at once seems to be about morality, bioethics, motherhood and fatherhood, procreation, and the student-teacher relationship, but ultimately never wholly becomes about any of them.  The question of whether or not this experiment should be performed, which seems to be at the crux of the play, feels almost irrelevant at the play’s end, with no strong argument from the other side.

Michael Bigelow Dixon’s tight direction keeps the 90-minute play moving full-speed ahead while also bringing out the complex relationship between Shelley and Professor Stein. Ray Neufeld’s set nicely evokes a high-tech, windowless office, and engaging video and projections help Professor Stein deliver his lectures and commentary.

Cooney, who originated the role of Shelley in Minneapolis, gives a solid, affecting performance, but both Cooney and Kareken fail to bring out Shelley’s supposed high intelligence. Occasionally, Shelley makes an insightful comment, but mainly she is just a desperate student wanting to escape her boring, average life.  As such, she moves blindly and recklessly toward her goal without much forethought, making it difficult to be sympathetic toward her quest.

De Nola brings humor and a paternal warmth to Professor Stein, who tries to steer Shelley away from what he believes to be a dangerous project.  He never fully delves into the moral quandary of the procedure, however, so one is left thinking, if Shelley can pull this crazy experiment off, well, why not“