Some people transmit their profound life experiences in autobiographies. Others, in memoirs. Playwright/performer Margot Rose has fashioned a proprietary genre, a “musical memoir,” as a live-theater experience. The one-act show’s title, “Unconditional,” ostensibly refers to the quality of unbound love that she tapped, in real life, as the parent of twins. Parenthood had extra meaning for Rose, a gay woman, and her partner, as it was nearly desperately sought. “Unconditional,” which is mid-run at Los Feliz’s Skylight Theatre, gives form to an inchoate mix of joy, loss, and sorrow that was Ms. Rose’s roller-coaster ride in motherhood. An accident coming out of the blue left her bereft of agency save her own creative talent.
Her skills in storytelling and song, in turn, gave birth to a nearly 90-minute showcase in which Ms. Rose fronts an on-stage five-member musical ensemble, together seguing from narrative into song and then back again. At the forefront of this tidy band is Melina Young, singing sundry roles, but primarily Rose’s daughter, Nora. The libretto, directed by Anne Kenny, spools with good pacing, allowing the audience to hop on board a saga of suburban normalcy: a beloved home, a backyard, a neighborhood. And then it all changes.
Haunting songs with refrains “How can I go on?” and “You made me better. Better than I could ever get on my own” lend expression of life’s deepest angst. The claim that “I was meant to be a mother,” is followed by a rare admission, “I barely get by myself.” There is no way that those simple lyrics cannot resonate with every audience member who is, or was, a mother, or who had one. In essence, it can resonate with everyone.
Unconditional, A Musical Memoir | Skylight Theatre | thru March 9