ORONO – Some Theatre is gearing up to produce “night Mother,” its first offering of 2019.

“night, Mother” has been described as a ”shattering evening” in the theater, an experience that leaves many audiences stunned and weeping. The message this play delivers is not only vitally important in today’s world, but it’s also delivered in such a way that it deeply resonates with the audience on many levels that it will stay with them long after it is over.

Jessie Cates packs her belongings into bags intended for donation to charity. She’s doing so because, as she tells her mother, Thelma, she plans to kill herself that very evening.

Written by one of America’s most talented playwrights, Marsha Norman, “‘night, Mother” won the Dramatists Guild’s prestigious Hull-Warriner Award, four Tony nominations, the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, and a Pulitzer Prize in 1983.

“‘night, Mother” offers a close, thought-provoking, and emotionally complex, storyline that confronts subjects that are still considered off-limits like mental health, family dysfunction, and depression. The intensity of Norman’s scenes will shake the audience’s emotions. The up-close and personal set design will make the audience feel as if they are watching real life unfold before them. Everything on stage actually works, including the wall clock, as the play happens in real time. Thelma and Jessie’ lives are built on local gossip, and household obligations that have become ritualized and mundane. Before this very night neither woman has articulated their true feelings to the other. As each character’s solitude is uncovered the more we realize that Jessie’s decision to end her life may not be the most tragic point of the play, but instead her mother’s awakening to the inexorable logic of that verdict.

“‘night Mother” will star Alison Cox and Stacy Laflin and is being directed by Logan Bard.

Performances will be held at the Keith Anderson Community House, 19 Bennoch Rd., Orono, on Jan. 18 at 7;30 p.m.; Jan. 19 at 2 and 7:30 p.m.; and Jan. 20 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $12 general Admission and $25 Patron of the Arts reserved seating andd available at the door, or, online via the website www.stcmaine.org.