About the work
Nacht, Mutter (original title: 'night, Mother) is a one-act chamber play by the American writer Marsha Norman, unfolding in real time over a single evening in the house of the widowed Thelma. It premiered in December 1982 at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and transferred with the same cast, directed by Tom Moore, to the John Golden Theatre on Broadway.
Plot
Jessie, an adult daughter who suffers from epilepsy, casually tells her mother Thelma, while the two are tidying the house, that she plans to take her own life that same night. The rest of the play consists of Thelma's desperate, shifting attempts to talk her out of it, as the two women revisit their shared history.
Cultural significance
Norman won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the play, along with the Dramatists Guild's Hull-Warriner Award and a Tony nomination; 'night, Mother has since become one of the most frequently performed American two-character dramas and was filmed in 1986 with Sissy Spacek.