The Notion that "A Mother Knows" Presented by the Actress-Mother of "Katie"

 Jonathan turned down the chance to see several of the plays I was seeing, but he immediately said yes to Katie,  the play by Javier's son Miguel Toruno.  It was fortunate that one of the nights it was playing was Dark Monday, so I didn't have to give up any of the tickets I had for other nights.  (I would have given one up if it had been necessary.)

We were thrilled to see Miguel both before and after the play.  (I'd like a tee-shirt like his, and I'll bet Javier would too--even though he never wears a tee-shirt.)

The play itself was/is very engaging and thought-provoking as you can tell by the talk back here:

 http://pennytempletonstudio.com/katie-directed-penny-templeton-opens-tonight-theater-new-city/

For now I'm going to comment on only one remark that was made:  Alixx Schottland, who played the mother,  said, in reference to her "reading" of her daughter's wish to have sex with her male care-taker, "A mother knows."  

I am also a mother, and I had a mother, and I know that a mother doesn't always know.  But this theme interested me very much in terms of  plays I was familiar with before I saw Katie:

The mother in The Glass Menagerie knows that her daughter needs a gentleman caller who will eventually marry her and take care of her and the family in a way that her son Tom wants to escape.

The mother in The Light in the Piazza knows that her developmentally disabled daughter can find happiness in a normal life if she doesn't reveal her daughter's mental age  to the Italian man in love with her.  

After seeing  Katie and participating in the talk-back afterwards, my son and I saw   Miss Saigon, and Dear Even Hansen.   At the end of the week, we discussed the notion that a mother knows.

In Miss Saigon, the mother knows she would give her life for her son, and when she's convinced that her child's only chance at a good life is being adopted by his father and his wife, she kills herself so that she will not be an obstacle in the way of the adoption.

In Dear Even Hansen neither mother knows what's going on in the life of her son.  Of course, they don't spend almost every  moment of every day with their sons either!

To be continued...