Mary Jane – 06 April 2024

We as a society are often overwhelmed and overloaded by stories about people bravely fighting tenuous battles with physical and mental health conditions. Watching the battle is often exhausting for the audience. Mary Jane was a whole new level of emotional upheaval, because it told this all too familiar story without showing us the person with the illness. Instead, we watched the parallel journey of the mother of a premature baby devote every moment of her life, and every fiber of her being to keeping him alive. It had the added dimension of her giving years of her life to a child who had never even spoken to her because her son, Alex, was unable to.

Despite the optimism and energy that Mary Jane (Rachel McAdams) brought to this role, the show was ultimately about suffering. We watched Mary Jane’s emotional roller coaster, and saw within it her boundless compassion, even in moments, where she could not completely suppress her uncertainty. Even at the end of her tether, it was rare that she snapped at someone, and when she did snap at the music therapist at the end, she was quick to apologize.

The show also snuck in a slice of life of the kind of people you know when this is your reality. Mary Jane’s social circle was nurses, health aids, and other parents struggling through similar situations. She didn’t have connections who were living regular lives, raising healthy children. She wasn’t even connected to Alex’s father. And, most astonishingly heart breaking of all, she never questioned her role. Being a caretaker to a premature baby is not a thing someone can anticipate, yet Mary Jane seemed to move through this world with very little thought about what her life was before. Though she vaguely mentioned wanting to be a teacher, she never once agonized over the trade offs and blamed her child. Even when it made her physically sick, Mary Jane seemed unaware that there was a cause of her suffering and certainly never pinned that cause on Alex.

It seemed impossible to me that a woman as alive as Mary Jane really had no regrets, no awareness of other possibilities for her life, no resentment for a child whose personality and life force she knew only from movements of an infant (then toddler) who couldn’t really give her any kind of emotional support or reciprocity. It made me wonder if Mary Jane felt relieved, in a way, that her life purpose was so clearly defined for her—that she never had to struggle to live her dreams because she had something more important to throw her energy into. She never got to know if she would make it as a teacher. Maybe she would have suffered crushing disappointment if her emotional involvement with the students proved difficult or her days proved too monotonous for her.

Yet despite the smile on her face, it was evident by the end that Mary Jane was suffering—she just wasn’t aware that that was the word for it. Seeing this play performed in a theatre made me think about all the caregivers in my life and the patience that it takes to stand by somebody’s side above all else, even when they’re not receptive. It had me wondering if it’s easier to take care of a child that can’t respond verbally because you don’t have to yell. You don’t have to fight about the rules and the chores and the homework. You have some quiet in your home, some space in your brain.

How could something like this possibly be a blessing? After I left the theatre, I found myself thinking about Chaya (Susan Parfour), who wasn’t sure that taking care of this kind of child was easier with faith. It struck me that, as an Orthodox Jew with many other children, Chaya had a foot in both worlds and was suffering too, but was able to keep moving—maybe not because of her faith, but more because raising healthy children took a toll on her that Mary Jane couldn’t even imagine. Like Mary Jane, Chaya was exhausted, but Chaya couldn’t let it dominate her whole life. In fact, her name, “Chaya”, means “life/living” in Hebrew. Chaya was the example of how it is possible to have a very sick child and live because there were other people in her world. Mary Jane, on the other hand, knew little of life, and had stopped wanting to.

The show is a phenomenal window into the world of caregiving. However, I think if you have ever been in this role personally, the show didn’t reveal much and might even have been triggering to watch and to think about your life in terms of your suffering.

The performance I attended was a preview performance.

I did not attend this performance on a press pass.