I first experienced Anne Marie’s brilliant comic artistry a few weeks ago when she performed her new one-woman play, MILF Life Crisis, at the Red Sandcastle Theatre. (Read the full review.) In the show, Anne Marie finds herself suddenly divorced with two young boys in tow and is thrown back into the casual hookup/Tinder dating pool—with uproariously funny results.
In her original one-woman show, Suddenly Mommy, Anne Marie jumps back in time to the origins of her tragicomic journey. One moment she is a naïve, innocent young woman looking to “get lucky” with some handsome dude; the next she is pregnant with child (by said new guy), who is also moving in with his nasty teenage stepdaughter. Instant family. (Watch clips from Suddenly Mommy.)
Oy Vey! Two years later, another baby boy joins this hilariously dysfunctional family
Anne Marie’s character (coincidentally called Anne Marie) is completely unprepared for motherhood: the late night feedings, the constant demands by her selfish kids to be fed at least once a day, the lack of sleep, the non-existent sex. Anne Marie comes to the funny yet sad realization that unlike her hero, Céline Dion, she cannot have it all. (That is, a kick-ass acting career and well-behaved, well-trained, and well-fed children.)
Some of the funniest, gut-busting, and heart-wrenching scenes involve Anne Marie channeling the great diva Céline as she advises her, in Quebecois-inflected English, how she navigates a fabulous Vegas career with raising her beautiful son, René Charles. It is, simply, comic gold.
In Suddenly Mommy, Anne Marie brings back her wise lesbian mother/friend Terry (we enjoyed her in MILF Life Crisis) who bluntly throws a lifeline to the drowning young mother. Terry wisely advises, “No matter what you do, Anne Marie, your kids will hate you.” While Anne Marie’s other close girlfriend, the super-hot supermodel Chanel, surveys the scene of Anne Marie’s mud-stained boys under foot and her expanding waistline says, “What happened to you, Anne Marie? You used to be a ‘small,’ now, you are (horrors!) a ‘medium’.” She absurdly advises Anne Marie to get out, before it’s too late.
Anne Marie also introduces us to her sister Belinda. She’s the perfect mom. Martha Stewart on steroids. The type who churns her own butter and feeds her perfect children wholesome and freshly prepared food, all from scratch.
In Suddenly Mommy, the jokes, sketches, and laughs come fast and furious. (They of course hit home to us married and single dads as well. You’re not the only one who is sleep-deprived and sex-starved, Missy!)
The show is a very smartly written, beautifully paced, and wonderfully acted piece of comic theatre. And the very sexy Anne Marie does a great impromptu striptease on stage, shaking her bodacious booty. Bonus.
Deep down, Anne Marie is a great mom with adoring kids and an audience that cherishes every step of her crazy journey. I, for one, can’t wait for the sequel when her oldest, Nathan, is now a strapping high-school senior who knocks up the head cheerleader … and Anne Marie is “Suddenly Grandmommy.” Epic.
But for now, Anne Marie is returning to the Red Sandcastle Theatre in Toronto with her outrageous MILF Life Crisis from June 7 to 11. I am once again bringing my single, recently separated, sex-starved, angry, but fabulous-looking female friends. This show speaks to them and the horny men who harass them on Tinder. I hope to see you there.
Mitch Wolfe: The Playful Contrarian 