SOURCE: "Norman's 'night, Mother: Psycho-drama of Female Identity," in Modern Drama, Vol. 30, No. 3, September 1987, pp. 364-75.

In the essay below, Spencer provides a psychoanalytic interpretation of 'night, Mother, focusing on the mother-daughter relationship.

By the time I saw a production of Norman's play 'night, Mother, it was a highly acclaimed Broadway success that had already won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Like most of the audience, I knew the play ended with a suicide. But being armed against an indulgently emotional response did not prevent me from having one. What I experienced as almost overwhelmingly painful, however, was viewed with utter indifference by the otherwise sensitive men in my company. The post-production discussion re-affirmed what I found to be a surprising difference between men's and women's responses to this play. Most of the discussion was among female viewers, who found the play intensely disturbing, realistic, and utterly riveting...