Ever sat in a public place and felt like someone was watching you? Like a stranger was talking about your appearance and behavior? Well, of course. You live in the age of the internet, after all. You live in a time where every aspect of your life is cataloged, put on display, and discussed. As such, people feel like they know you. They feel like they have the right to judge. But do they? Or are they, in so doing, actually just creating unnecessary conflict with people that they don’t even know? These questions, and more, are at the heart of Sara States’ “Mommy Milk Cafe,” a play I had the pleasure of watching via Facebook Live last night.
A short comedy about two pairs of women in a coffee shop, Claire and Krissy at one table, and Rita and Janet at another becoming aware of, passing judgment on, and amping up conflict with each other, and all without really saying anything, the piece’s deceptively simple premise has many layers to it. The stakes in this specific circumstance are low, at the very worst, one pair will leave the coffee shop if things get out of hand, but the way the conflict escalates can also act as an allegory for how wars and ethnic strife get started. The women see each other, and, based off of nothing besides their respective appearances, assume they know who they are. And they use those assumptions to interpret subsequent interactions. The two pairs only speak to each other twice, once when Claire asks Rita and Janet for some syrup, and once when Rita gives Claire and Krissy a scone that she got for free. The actual words exchanged are polite, and yet, because of the assumptions that they’ve made, the two groups of women interpret these words, these gestures, as slights. Rita and Janet assume that Claire came over to be passive-aggressive. Claire reads Rita’s giving of the scone, something that Rita meant as a peace offering, as condescension. Neither side understands the other, precisely because they don’t want to understand the other, and subsequently become more resentful and angry. This exact kind of active misunderstanding has led to countless conflicts throughout history. Look at the Cold War. There were so many instances, in Vietnam, in Korea with the Chinese, where the US assumed it knew what its enemy would do, or wanted, based on nothing more than bias, and subsequently made things worse. People like Douglas McArthur, Lyndon Jonson, and Robert McNamara had the opportunity to learn about, to communicate with and understand who their enemies were, and what they wanted. But they chose not to. They assumed they knew who their foes were, and subsequently made blunders that cost millions of lives. They, like the characters in this play, decided it wasn’t worth trying to talk to the other side.
But lest you think that this piece is nothing more than a dour thesis on the nature of prejudice, rest assured that it is quite funny. Each woman is richly drawn, with the nervous mother Rita and judgmental yoga instructor Claire feeling very fleshed out, thanks, in no small part, to the rock-solid performances of their portrayers, Alexandra Maria and Yuyu Kitamura. An especially amusing exchange involves Rita telling Janet that Claire and Krissy look like the type to take “bourgeois boxing classes,” to which Janet responds, “Oh, you mean like the kind we just took?” Perfect. Just perfect.
In the end, I loved “Mommy Milk Cafe.” I genuinely think that States is a talent to look out for, as are her cast, and that if you sought their work out, you wouldn’t regret it.
liusviews 