The fascination over the assassination of President John Kennedy has waned in recent years. It’s now almost fifty-five years since that November lunchtime in Dallas and the current political situation has eclipsed many things that went before. But there was a time when several generations could cite chapter and verse of not only where they were When They Heard, but could discuss the related events and personalities and theories the same way they discussed the local sports team or the scandalous behavior of a neighbor or a dissolute movie star.
One of the strangest of the minor characters in that event – a title for which there’s a fair amount of competition – is Marguerite Oswald, the mother of Lee Harvey Oswald. Rob Urbinati has written a play about her called Mamma’s Boy, and it’s now on the boards here, courtesy of the Tesseract Theatre Company.
Lee was the youngest of Marguerite’s three boys. By the time he’d returned from his defection to Russia, the older two were more or less estranged from her, and she was, at best, ambivalent about his Russian wife, Marina. That’s about the point at which the play opens, although there are a couple of flashbacks. Brandon Atkins is our Lee Harvey Oswald, struggling to escape his mother’s smothering and sometimes succeeding, struggling to escape the mediocrity that he felt he didn’t deserve, struggling for recognition. Atkins’ Oswald is more human than the character is often shown.
Donna Parrone brings us mamma Marguerite, in all her pathology. Marguerite was convinced that her son was a government agent and had gone to Russia on a mission and, alternatively, that he didn’t kill JFK or that he did so on orders from his government handlers. She was prone to over the top dramatics, angry that Jacqueline Kennedy got “all the attention” and believed that she was entitled to just as much sympathy and recognition. All this and more pour out of Parrone-as-Marguerite’s mouth, causing gasps from the audience. Parrone lays into the content with spirit and vitriol, just right for the unpredictable woman. (Such remarks from Mrs. Oswald are fairly well documented, rather than an immense literary reach.)
Marina Oswald, Carly Uding, is easily believable as Marina, who starts out polite and docile but soon shows a mind of her own and tries to stand up to the Oswalds mere and fils, although this proves to be nigh-on impossible. Uding carries it off well, going from wide-eyed to fiery. The middle brother, Robert, Jeremy Goldmeier, whose role in the aftermath of the assassination was largely unsung, is given the gentle and kind portrayal of a man who mostly managed to untangle himself from his mother’s clutches.
Director Brad Schwartz stages the play using four dancers, referred to as “shadows”, They don’t follow characters onstage but instead seem to represent thoughts of the characters and those of the audience as well, and are used in some scenes, as when Marguerite visits Lee in Jail after he’s apprehended, to assist in the setting. It’s fine work from him, using Tanya Shea’s choreography for the dancers to soften the rough edges of the terrible reality.
Mamma’s Boy is certainly family drama writ large, dysfunction and pain behind the headlines. Much of the story seems to be fairly accurate, according to news reports. For instance, when Marguerite heard about the assassination and who had been arrested, she had no transportation from her home in Fort Worth, so she called the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and asked for a ride to Dallas police headquarters. When she identified herself as Oswald’s mother, the reporter who answered the phone agreed, and borrowed a car to pick her up. That reporter was Bob Schieffer, who’s now the CBS newsman leading the network’s Washington bureau.
A fascinating story and very well told. Not just for history buffs.
Mamma’s Boy
through September 30
Tesseract Theatre Company
.Zack Theatre
3224 Locust St.