That teddy bear is one point of contention between mom Mary (Brooke Bloom, left) and nanny Ashling (Lynn Collins, right) in Erica Schmidt’s Lucy.
A few months ago Merriam-Webster declared gaslighting 2022’s word of the year. It’s a word with origins in the theater—inspired by the title of a 1938 play, which was later adapted into an Oscar-winning film. Gaslighting returns to the theater with Lucy, Erica Schmidt’s intriguing new drama in which a nanny seems to be playing mind games with the mother who hires her.
They begin in the first scene, when Ashling breezes into Mary’s immaculate apartment, putting her feet on the couch when she sits and making a mess with her cup of tea—just the type of things people normally wouldn’t do if they’re trying to impress a potential employer. Ashling looks like she’s in her thirties but says she’s 58. She denies a previous employer’s accusation that she stole a dress and ring, but also claims she paid the family back for the items. She seems to expect Mary to accommodate her schedule, rather than the other way around. And she describes what she does as “co-parenting.”
Mary (Bloom, right) is in the last days of her pregnancy when Ashling (Collins, left) joins the household.
Still, Mary—single mom to a headstrong 6-year-old, nine months pregnant with her second child, working long hours as a radiologist—goes ahead and hires Ashling. She did check her references, and they were “amazing.” But then the unsettling incidents begin: A bottle of Children’s Tylenol on the counter that Ashling says she didn’t put there. Vomit on the crib that she can’t explain. Giving the baby a bottle shortly before Mary was going to nurse him because he was supposedly crying like he was “starving.” Insisting Mary told her she had the day off on days Mary has to go to work. And an aroma that’s gotten all over the baby, his clothing and the furniture—Mary hesitantly and apologetically asks Ashling to stop wearing perfume; Ashling replies that she doesn’t wear any.
Mary also apologetically asks Ashling not to cook one day because it would take away from “floor time” with the baby and he needs that exercise to get sufficiently tired to sleep through the night. “Please don’t make the soup today. Maybe another day, later, when he starts sleeping again,” she requests. But the second Mary walks out the door, Ashling fills a pot with water and begins chopping vegetables.
Why such conflicts and confusion keep happening is something audience members may interpret differently. Schmidt, the play’s director as well as author, has crafted Lucy as a thriller: Are exhaustion and parental insecurities causing Mary to be suspicious, or is Ashling deliberately undermining her? Is Ashling too self-centered and insubordinate for a nanny, or do her decades (if she was being truthful about her work history) of childcare experience help her understand kids better than their parents do? Ashling’s behavior and responses leave Mary questioning her own perception and judgments—is the nanny gaslighting her?
Bloom as Mary, finally reaching a decision about her nanny. Photographs by Joan Marcus.
Viewers may take sides based purely on personality, since actors Lynn Collins and Brooke Bloom thoroughly and convincingly imbue their characters with distinct personas. Collins makes Ashling’s free-spiritedness and aplomb so enchanting, even when she’s not being honest or considerate, that you understand how she can coast on BS. Bloom’s Mary is a determined woman who has rules and expectations for her home and children yet is cowed by Ashling’s self-assurance. As the mother and employer, she may be the sterner and more demanding of the two, but her demands are not unreasonable, and Ashling has a way of ignoring the ones she doesn’t agree with.
By the end of the play it’s clear who Schmidt blames for the discord. But the thoughtful fun she has with various possibilities about who’s right and who’s wrong creates an atypical game of cat and mouse, made all the more compelling by the full-blooded portrayals from Bloom and Collins. Lucy also features a third commendable performance: 5-year-old Charlotte Surak as the title character, Mary’s daughter. A disciplined actress for her age, Surak has excellent chemistry with her costars and believably expresses Lucy’s joy, fears and anxieties.
Lucy takes place in Mary’s clean, modern apartment, its living room and open kitchen depicted to scale in the sleek set designed by Amy Rubin. Kaye Voyce’s costumes accentuate the women’s differences: Mary wearing solid neutrals, her hair pulled back in a bun; Ashling in multicolor, gauzy dresses and tops that are flowy just like her long, loose hair.
As in most thrillers, Lucy’s story appears to be building to a surprise reveal, though one never comes. And at over 90 minutes without intermission, the play goes on perhaps one or two skirmishes too long. But it is invigorated by personality clashes and mysteries likely to be debated after the show.
Audible Theater’s Lucy runs through Feb. 25 at the Minetta Lane Theatre in Greenwich Village. Performances are at 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday. For tickets and more information, visit lucytheplay.com.
