A ‘Mother’s Day’ Gathering Filled With Family Drama

What’s a mother to do? Tortured by a secret in her past, Marion (Jacqueline Schultz) is trying desperately to get pregnant after decades of infertility. Her frantic and costly efforts to bear a child have estranged her husband, Frank (Sam Anderson), a real estate agent whose career is on the skids along with his self-esteem, and her adopted daughter Heidi (Liz Jemielita), who views Marion’s 11th-hour efforts to bear biological offspring as a personal rejection. When Heidi brings home the mysterious young Darren (Ben Caswell), just in time for Mother’s Day, the family’s cup of agony and confusion runneth over.

“Mother’s Day,” Stephen Sachs’ fraught, fervid drama at the Fountain, goes into emotional overdrive early on and remains stuck in gear throughout. Sachs, who also directs, layers the play with obvious symbols and even more blatant sentimentality. An obsessive gardener, Marion points out a resurrection plant to Darren. Hey, she explains, it may look dead and dried out, but it’s just in need of a good soaking to come to vibrant life. And if that’s not explicit enough, Darren is soon pouring water over Marion while she arches orgasmically. It’s a typically cheap scene in this histrionic cavalcade, filled with unremittingly miserable characters who are either quoting Emily Dickinson or biting one another’s heads off.

Despite the limitations of their material, Anderson and Schultz perform heroically, investing their characters with a rich emotional texture that covers a multitude of faults. And the design elements are uniformly outstanding, particularly the patio garden set designed by Sets-to-Go and dressed by Eileen’s Prop Shop, and the wonderfully subtle lighting by Kathi O’Donohue.

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* “Mother’s Day,” Fountain Theatre, 5060 Fountain Ave., Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays,8 p.m.; most Sundays, 7 p.m.; this Sunday and April 11, 3 p.m. No show Easter. Ends April 11. $18-$22. (323) 663-1525. Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes.