Theater Review : ‘Mother’ Puts Women on Soapbox, Not Pedestal

Carol Lynn Pearson’s one-woman show “Mother Wove the Morning” (reviewed at the Ivar Theatre and currently playing Thursdays at the Curtis Theatre in Brea) is a series of 16 monologues from women from biblical times to the present.

The soliloquies, which invariably deplore patriarchal abuses and argue for the return of “the Goddess” to her rightful place in the heavens, degenerate into a stupefying sermon that will send even the most ardent New Agers fleeing for the exits.

Pearson sports a draping white tunic, flinging her arms wide in benedictory attitudes that would shame Aimee Semple McPherson. One passage ends in tears. “She does that to me every time,” she confides about the character. Aside from hers, there’s not a wet eye in the house.

* “Mother Wove the Morning,” Thursdays at 8 p.m. at the Curtis Theatre, 1 Civic Center Circle, Brea. $14 to $17. Ends June 22. (714) 990-7722. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.