"A Mother's Prayer" a Stage play - Review by Carrington J. Lei

Contact Carrington Lei: CarringtonLei@aol.com

In putting together my review of the stage play "A Mother's Prayer" (not to be confused with the movie of the same name) I was conflicted for several reasons.

The philosophical part of me tried to no avail, to comprehend how a musical co-starring Johnny Gill and Shirley Murdock, two of the most powerful voices is black music could be anything less than stellar - and then there was the fact that I so desperately wanted to give a positive review for a play with a positive message.

With a can't miss cast that also included Robin Givens and The Wire's Jermaine Crawford, I wondered how something with the right formula, could end up so terribly wrong.

And here is what I've deduced:

By taking what appears to be a very rushed story about an abusive father (where the actual "abuse" never quite worked it's way into the story), add to that a couple children who run away in order to escape said abuse (which amounted to a lone smack by the abusive father), to that, add the anticipated lives of crime, abuse and drugs that follows the runaways, a dying mother's wish that her family structure return to "norm", a grandfather portrayed by a 20-something year old and you've got "A Mother's Prayer".

At the end of the day, I just didn't get it. The entire thing felt rushed and without substance and I'd be foregoing my journalistic integrity if I didn't convey that message to the people who look to my reviews for an honest opinion.

For my taste, there were far too many "missing" components of this story in order for me to take it seriously. The abuse, which SHOULD have been the premise of the play simply wasn't there, and the one "abuse" scene didn't appear to be abusive at all, in fact, it felt more accidental than the progressive trend of abuse that it was intended to be.

And then there was the mother's (Robin Givens') illness. I couldn't help feeling that I'd missed something. I knew that she was dying, but I never figured out what she was dying of. All I know is that in each of the 4, count em, 4 scenes that she appeared in, she continued to get "sicker" and was even confined to a wheelchair and had to be fed at one point and then miraculously, she was back to normal by the end of the play.

I don't even have the energy to go into the fact that, for the life of me, I can't understand why a 25-year old was tapped to portray the role of the "wise-cracking" grandfather. My thought is, if you had enough money to hire Johnny Gill, Robin Givens and Shirley Murdock, then surely there was enough money in the budget to hire an age appropriate lesser known actor to portray an elderly man. That all made complete sense during the credits when I learned that "grandpa" was portrayed by the actual playwright. (Everybody's trying to get their Tyler Perry on)

My opinion is that Tyler has raised the bar so high for "chitlin' circuit" plays that, as viewers we have come to naturally demand and expect a better quality and body of work - unfortunately, Alvin Moore Jr. didn't get the memo.

Surprisingly, even Johnny Gill's vocals felt "hardened" and forced (possibly in an effort to compensate for the lack of continuity in the storyline itself).

The one saving grace for the entire play was surprisingly, Shirley Murdock - so based upon the Shirley factor, I give the play itself a C-, without Shirley. I think Moore would be in summer school.