[NoHo Arts District, CA] – A NoHo Arts theatre review of My Mother Had Two Faces: Reflections on Beauty, Aging and Acceptance, written and performed by Karin Trachtenberg, directed by and developed with Jessica Lynn Johnson and produced by Jessica Lynn Johnson and Heather Dowling, performed at Solo Stars series.
I am a huge fan of solo shows and the more autobiographical the better! Karin Trachtenberg’s truly excellent show about her Swiss mother’s quest for perfection and her own journey through that is as vivid as it is compelling. As Karin untangles this complicated relationship with a woman as multi-faceted as Karin herself has become, we see the parallels we all have with our own complex mother-daughter relationships.
So much of Karin’s experience rang true for me. A beautiful mother fearful of having nothing but her looks. A stubborn daughter determined to be nothing like her. Complicated by the sense that everyone around her admired her mother, loved her, was beguiled by her, wanting to be her or have her to themselves. And so Karin felt abandoned, not pretty enough, not interesting enough…not enough. Of course, whatever we feel as children or adults isn’t necessarily real, but the feelings are and they can create such chasms, such walls, such separation emotionally that it seems irreversible.
Karin’s performance, using mirrors, humor and dark Disney-esque stylings and mixed media was absolutely riveting.
She is an accomplished actress in Europe and the US and her storytelling abilities are really off the charts. But this show is deceptively simple..just the story of her mother and her. It’s something totally relatable, nothing you might imagine as life changing really or particularly profound, nothing big enough for that. And yet, never before have I found myself so utterly in tune with a show. This story and particularly the way Karin wrote it really reached me. I felt deeply moved and also somehow softly validated. As a daughter of a strong beautiful woman myself, who was complex and layered and charismatic, I could see myself in Karin’s life, and in a sweetly poetic way, this play acknowledged that connection too.
There are stories enough being told every day that some will seem like reflections of one’s own life…and I suppose this was such a story for me. But it’s not just the people in this story as much as it is the recreating of them.
Karin’s play is so beautifully formed and unfolded. It is graceful and forgiving and nuanced and it allows the audience to exist within it…at least I felt that I could. And in that way, I could see my mother once again. Which was a gift, although a complicated one.
For me, solo shows work best when they are deeply personal and specific. A poem rather than a book. My Mother Had Two Faces: Reflections on Beauty, Aging and Acceptance is a deep exploration of a complicated relationship between a mother and a daughter and how we all struggle with legacy good and bad. I now have a daughter of my own and I can see echoes of my life with my mother in us every single day. But I treasure that, the good and the bad, because those memories stirred bring my mother to me once again. And I miss her.