SOURCE: "Don't Read This Review!" in The New Republic, Vol. 188, 2 May 1983, pp. 25-7.

In the following favorable assessment of 'night, Mother, Brustein asserts that the play "proceeds with the relentless force of a juggernaut, displaying not a single moment of artifice or contrivance or self-consciousness. "

Since the theater with which I am associated originated this production of Marsha Norman's 'night, Mother (Golden), I should disqualify myself from writing a review. Well, I'm going to commit an unethical journalistic act, and submit one anyway. I have two excuses for this totally self-serving decision, neither very exculpatory. One is that ever since I first read 'night, Mother, it has filled me with the kind of exaltation I experience only in the presence of a major dramatic work, and how many new plays can you say that about in the course of a reviewing career? The other is that since my...