NI MI MADRE

​NEW HAVEN REVIEW

"Arturo Soria’s one-man show Ni Mi Madre is in fact a one-woman show, and the woman is Soria’s mother. The idea of conveying the manner and perspective of one’s own mother may seem a tall order to most of us, but Soria’s transformation into his mother enables him to take us on a tour of his mother’s life in her own words. Brazilian, married three times, with nicknames for her husbands and her children—Arturo is the son of her second husband—“Madre” holds court with fascinating panache, her monologue a freewheeling diatribe of reminiscence and self-promotion. She sees herself as comparable to Madonna and Angelina Jolie and, her special hero, Meryl Streep. For Madre, acting is essential to life. A lesson her son seems to have learned at her breast, or even in the womb.

Are we really meeting Soria’s mother? Are the stories she tells true? We can’t know for sure, but the character behind the tales is forceful, funny, domineering and able to play upon pathos for effect. An “every-mother” in a sense, but there is nothing generic in the stories she tells. Soria’s play, directed by Danilo Gambini, puts the actor's own relationship to his mother under scrutiny as we hear her view of him—her gay artist son—and of anyone and anything her roving attention fixes upon. Being in the audience is a little like eavesdropping on a private conversation between Soria and his mother, but it’s also like being a voiceless interviewer, with Madre volunteering answers to questions we didn’t ask, or didn’t know to ask..."

-Donald Brown Read the article here

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