“In putting her mother onstage, Vogel effectively puts her on a kind of pedestal. She’s not just a character; she’s a star. And not just any star; she’s Jessica Lange. Keenan-Bolger and Parsons are very good indeed in Mother Play, but there’s no question to whom it belongs. Lange is magnificent, especially in this production’s most moving scene: a long passage that the script calls the Phyllis Ballet. Phyllis is alone onstage, because she has pushed everyone away. There is no dialogue, because she has no one to talk to. She stares out motionless at the audience for a discomfiting amount of time, letting us project onto her face like an actress in a film; then, in a silky magenta robe, she enacts a kind of sad silent comedy, setting a dignified dinner for herself and dousing her food in hot sauce. She has fallen down the well of loneliness. Bringing decades of experience to bear, Lange is riveting—and so, by extension, is Phyllis. In this painfully honest tribute, Phyllis’s pain is part of the picture. Vogel does her mother dirty, but she does her mother proud.” —TimeOut New York
“Lange is magnificent in her depiction of a woman who, across the decades, can’t quite reconcile what her life or her children have become.” — Variety
“Jessica Lange returns to the Broadway stage with a sensational performance in Paula Vogel’s Mother Play. …In a roughly 10-minute, wordless solo scene, Lange’s Phyllis wanders the now empty rooms, busying herself while suffering the inevitable consequences of utter self-involvement. Lange holds the stage for every last second of the scene, doing what might seem impossible: The monster, she shows us, is human after all, and maybe even worthy of the grace Vogel offers.” — Deadline
“‘Mother Play’ is of course a showcase for Lange. Her Phyllis, dressed in Toni-Leslie James’s chic costumes, is on the blousy end of elegant. Nearly parodic in her feminine grace, she is also as hard as buffed, polished nails. … Another actress as Phyllis might have done more to communicate the small ravages of time, but Lange concentrates instead on her ageless ferocity and charm.“ — New York Times
“Jessica Lange triumphs!” — New York Daily News
“‘Mother Play’ marks Lange’s fourth engagement on Broadway but the first time she has originated a role there. In its excellence, her work in ‘Mother Play’ recalls what she did on stage as Mary Tyrone in ‘Long Day’s Journey into Night’ in 2016. The only difference is that Vogel gives Lange a few more notes to explore, most of them above the staff in the comic stratosphere.” — The Wrap
“The Tony winner [Lange] is as captivating as ever.” — The Guardian
“The actors’ respective physicality shine here, and they each find every comedic beat available to them, particularly Lange, who is clearly having a blast. … In the last ten years, Lange has remade her career by playing people’s awful mothers, so it’s not surprising she can convey the level of vitriol the character demands. But I was surprised at how much empathy she was able to create too. Phyllis could easily be reduced to a Ryan Murphy-esque caricature, yet Lange instead gains the audience’s sympathy in unexpected moments. In an extended, single-person scene, Phyllis faces an evening at home alone after alienating both of her children. Lange wrings the most emotion possible out of the smallest actions, somehow making your heart break by simply taking out a deck of cards, shuffling once, then putting them away again. She cycles through nonchalance, extreme anguish, distraction, and even moments of contentment – though of course, they’re very fleeting.“ — TheaterMania
“Lange is as good as you might expect playing an embittered aging woman pained by the way society has brushed her aside.” — Entertainment Weekly