SOURCE: "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Saint," in The New Yorker, Vol. LEX, No. 8, 11 April 1983, pp. 109-10, 112.

In this review, Gill praises the powerful simplicity of 'night, Mother. "With superb confidence in her powers," he observes, "the author dispenses with the usual artifices of plot; there are no unlooked-for surprises, there is only the fact that a woman of intelligence, energy, and good will is going to end her life, and with reason. "

'Night, Mother, by Marsha Norman, is a very good play indeed. It has just opened at the John Golden, one of the smallest of the Broadway houses, and I hope that, thanks to favorable word of mouth as well as to innumerable favorable reviews, it will be able to enjoy a long run there. The subject of the play is assuredly a painful one—a young woman's determination to commit suicide and her...