Mama Mama

Can’t You See

Mama Mama Can’t You See may be based on Stan Mayer’s life as a U.S. Marine, but don’t get it twisted: this is not a play about war. It’s a play about how to tell a war story.

The characters — four Iraq War Marines and four sex workers from the American Civil War — are helping Stan to recount the events of May 7th, 2005, when an explosion and the ensuing firefight killed Aaron, Doc, Mike, and his best friend, Lance. It was half a lifetime ago, but the remembering makes it now, and through the generous act of remembering, the characters — including Mayer, played by the real-life Stan — start to blur the boundaries of time, space, truth, and death itself.

Mama Mama is a highly physical, sensual, funny, angry, and surreal meditation on modern warfare and the cost of telling a true story.

photo by @meredithadelaide, courtesy of @coinandghost