Was Barra Grant's A Mother, A Daughter and A Gun on Target with Critics?

Put together Olympia Dukakis, Veanne Cox and a pistol and what do you get? The off-Broadway production of Barra Grant's A Mother, A Daughter and A Gun, which opened at Dodger Stages on November 1 after a brief run at the Helen Hayes Theatre in Nyack, New York. Did critics find the comedy explosive?

Here is a sampling of what they had to say:

William Stevenson in his Broadway.com Review: "Some plays sound promising and get off to a pretty good start, raising the audience's expectations before ultimately crashing and burning. That certainly applies to Barra Grant's erratic new comedy A Mother, A Daughter and A Gun, her first produced play. The talented duo of Olympia Dukakis and Veanne Cox headline the cast, and their first scene triggers some laughs. Then, unfortunately, it's all downhill from there… Grant shifts gears and concludes the play as a serious drama about a daughter whose life has been ruined by her mother's horrible behavior. Despite Dukakis' and Cox's skills, they can't pull off the abrupt change in tone. It isn't director Lynn's fault either, since the play goes from farce to heavy drama in a matter of moments. No cast or director could make Grant's far-fetched play believable or coherent."

Charles Isherwood of The New York Times: "Watching the talented actresses Veanne Cox and Olympia Dukakis flay each other for two hours with insults and accusations posing as repartee ranks among the more debilitating theatergoing experiences of the current season. Ms. Dukakis's character, Beatrice, is a dreary comic stereotype: the simultaneously withholding and controlling mother, in this case a specimen to make Tony Soprano's sweetheart of a mama seem like a candy striper… All this tough love, and much, much more, is delivered by Ms. Dukakis in a shticky, unmodulated croak that makes you long for the sweet song of gunfire that erupts at regular intervals, rattling any nerves left unnumbed by the dialogue's shrillness…. A specialist in brittle neurotics, Ms. Cox is generally a genius at imbuing her characters with an appealing blend of vulnerability and edgy intensity. But here her customary effects--the piping schoolmarm voice, the angular limbs that turn to Silly String in moments of stress--quickly curdle into grisly mannerisms."

Frank Scheck of The New York Post: "So many times does a gun go off during A Mother, A Daughter and A Gun that, by the time this seemingly endless play is over, theatergoers may be tempted to rush the stage, seize the weapon and use it either on themselves or the hapless performers. The latter include such pros as Olympia Dukakis, Veanne Cox and George S. Irving, and their desperation is palpable… While the play might have been a provocative dark comedy about female rage and the emotional complexities of mother/daughter relationships, its messages are lost amidst the one-note characterizations, inane dialogue and witless slapstick."

Howard Kissel of The New York Daily News: "The only interesting thing about the play, in which a mother and daughter wrangle endlessly and foolishly, is that it was written by Barra Grant, the daughter of Bess Meyerson. The author's program bio includes a 'special thanks to Bessie.' The actors do as well as they can with the forced, irritating material. Normally the one saving grace in even bad plays is the set. Here even that is amateurish--Jesse Poleshuck's rendering of a Manhattan apartment bears no resemblance to any I have seen. David Woolard's costumes only add to the tackiness of the proceedings."

Marilyn Stasio of Variety: "Any play that puts Olympia Dukakis, Veanne Cox and George S. Irving together onstage can't be all bad. As mother, daughter and dad in a prototypically dysfunctional family, these fully vetted and seasoned pros not only nail their laughs, they also make the slackers look good. But while their performances could serve as a valuable master class in the principles of comic acting, they can't save Barra Grant's domestic sitcom, A Mother, A Daughter and A Gun, from what ails it: familiarity, predictability and a made-for-TV sensibility that sinks it like a stone."

Peter Santilli of The Associated Press: "Of all the things that could come between mother and daughter, a loaded gun isn't the first one that comes to mind. But that explosive trio is the basis for Barra Grant's new play A Mother, A Daughter and A Gun, a dark and refreshingly original comedy… The mother, in this case named Beatrice, is played with characteristic flare and humor by the indomitable Olympia Dukakis… Veanne Cox is entertaining and affecting as Beatrice's unstable and devilishly sarcastic daughter, Jess, who buys a gun with the intention of using it on her cheating husband, David Matthew Greer. Cox is funny and engaging as she struggles under the weight of her homicidal urges and her mother's misplaced attempts to help the situation which, of course, only result in exacerbating it."

Zachary Pincus-Roth of Newsday: "The mother's insensitivity toward her daughter achieves ridiculous levels. When the younger woman's husband returns home, the cooing mother tries to convince him to leave her daughter and does something else too painfully cruel to believe. Believability wouldn't be such an issue if the play had moved completely into screwball-comedy territory. But it also wants Jess' crisis to resonate with emotional impact. You can't have it both ways, and this play ends up having neither."