‘Mother Play’ Broadway Review: Jessica Lange and Jim Parsons Battle for the Soul of a Family

There’s a trend in the theater to take classic plays, cut them in half and add a lot of modern jargon to make them digestible to today’s audience. Less common is what Woody Allen has done in the movies with “Blue Jasmine” and “Match Point.” Those two films can be viewed as effective rewrites and updates of “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “A Place in the Sun.” (Yes, I continue to watch and enjoy Woody Allen movies.)

Paula Vogel does something similar but more radical with her latest work, “Mother Play: A Play in Five Evictions,” which had its world premiere Thursday at the Helen Hayes Theater.