Review: In Stage Door’s ‘Cry It Out,’ strong performances overcome a weak story

Having a child not only forever changed the life of playwright Molly Smith Metzler, it served as the inspiration for her award-winning play Cry It Out. A look at motherhood and the effects it has on three women and one husband, the dramedy is running through February 16 at Stage Door Theatre, formerly known as Stage Door Players. 

The play offers some sharp observations and appealing central characters, which help smooth over some of the bumpier parts of the work.

Jessie (Jennifer Brown) used to enjoy a life in Manhattan as a corporate lawyer. These days, however, she is a mother in Long Island, and her day-to-day routine is much different: taking care of a newborn. When she sees fellow mother Lina (Amer-Marie Woods) — a health care worker — at a local store and excitedly introduces herself, the women become friends as they navigate the new challenges in their life. Both are on maternity leave and talk outside daily, baby monitors in hand, while their little ones take naps inside. They may be different, but they bond quickly over diapers, crying spells in the wee hours of the night and dealing with their significant others and their own futures. 

Their twosome is interrupted when a new neighbor, Mitchell (Matt Baum), asks if the two women will include his jewelry designer wife Adrienne (Cara Mantella) in their hangouts. They meet up one afternoon, with Adrienne dressed all in black and not very friendly. Adrienne, who has a nanny, doesn’t seem to be taking to motherhood, largely focused on her professional life and cutting her time with Jessie and Lina short. “I drop farts more pleasant than that woman,” says Lina after Adrienne leaves abruptly. 

As directed by Lauren Morris, Cry It Out is a lot better than it would be otherwise, despite some silly moments early on. The charms of the two leads make their moments together really work. The first 20 minutes or so of the show detail the intimate relationship Jessie and Lina have made at a time when adult interaction is rare and vital. In lesser hands, this could be fluff, yet Brown and Woods make their conversation quite believable. Jessie, in particular, has been dealing with loneliness and an inability to connect. Her childbirth story is harrowing.

The addition of the two characters of Mitchell and Adrienne, however, sends the play onto a different and not as satisfying path. Mitchell and Adrienne simply don’t have the dimensions the other two characters have. 

Metzler is a prolific writer, best known for the Netflix series Maid, which won her a Writer’s Guild of America award. Cry It Out won both the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Playwriting and the Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award Citation. The play has some interesting nuances looking at class and parenthood. Lina has no choice but to go back to work. Jessie initially looks forward to getting back on track professionally, yet, unlike Mitchell,  she doesn’t have the luxury of taking an extended maternity leave and faces going back to work sooner than she’d like. 

All four of the characters have some strong moments. The heart of the show is Brown, who is in virtually every scene and is quite warm and convincing. She has a great rapport with Woods. 

Mantella is a wonderful actor, but the role of Adrienne is underwritten and her character arc too rushed; I wish she had a few more scenes. Yet, to her credit, Mantella has a terrific scene with Brown in which details of her life come out, and it becomes easier to understand why she is not what everyone expects her to be.

This is the first production I’ve seen at Stage Door Theatre in several seasons. Much of the news about the Dunwoody-based company the last few years has been more about its changing administration than the productions. Robert Egizio, who served as the company’s artistic director for 16 years, was furloughed in 2020. The board said that revenue lost as a result of the pandemic was the reason. Soon after, Willie E. Jones III, hired in March 2021, resigned just after Thanksgiving of that year. Justin Ball has been serving as the artistic director since 2022.

Cry it Out is far from perfect; its ending is a bit cynical and icy and neutralizes much that has come before it. Yet, overall, the show is a pleasant surprise and a sound artistic choice for the company. 

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Jim Farmer is the recipient of the 2022 National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Award for Best Theatre Feature and a nominee for Online Journalist of the Year. A member of five national critics’ organizations, he covers theater and film for ArtsATL. A graduate of the University of Georgia, he has written about the arts for 30-plus years. Jim is the festival director of Out on Film, Atlanta’s LGBTQ film festival, and lives in Avondale Estates with his husband, Craig, and dog, Douglas