'night, Mother takes place in the living room and kitchen in the rural home of mother Thelma Cates and her daughter, Jessie. The play follows real time as displayed on a clock on stage. The hour and a half length of the play matches exactly the hour and a half of dialogue and action between Thelma's opening lines and her final call to Jessie's brother to inform him of his sister's death.

'night, Mother opens with Jessie Cates asking her mother for a piece of plastic sheeting and for the location of her father's gun. After Jessie finds the gun hidden away in an old shoe box in the attic, she begins cleaning the weapon. As she does, she calmly tells her mother that it is her intention to commit suicide later that evening. She accompanies this announcement with a stream of idle chatter...