Conflict between Mother and Daughter

Now a days in 2006 children usually fight back against their parents. And certain issues that are not settled inside the family turns to rebellion of these kids or children.

Article:

Mom-daughter emotional relationship explored

"Aug. 14--Do parents and their teen kids ever really live in flawless harmony? Maybe on an especially syrupy sitcom or after Dr. Phil works 15 minutes of therapeutic magic on them. But real-life relationships are much more emotionally unpredictable. Playwright Kathleen Tolan is nothing if not honest about mother-daughter conflicts in Memory House, an 80-minute dramatic pas de deux now being presented by The Women's Theatre Project and directed by Genie Croft. If you happen to be the parent of a teen (which I am), you may cringe at the too-resonant arguments, the sudden emotional shifts, the procrastination. It's all too familiar. Unfolding in real time in a Manhattan apartment on New Year's Eve (the handsome set is by Arnold Bueso), Memory House probes the volatile emotions of two characters on the cusp of life-changing events. Katia (Katie Middleton), a high school senior who was adopted years ago from a Russian orphanage, is facing a critical midnight deadline for mailing a college essay. Her divorced mother Maggie (Sally Bondi) is determined to see her conflicted daughter succeed, though she knows it will mean she'll be living her life all alone. Mom cajoles, goofs around, loses it and, during the process, manages to bake a blueberry pie. Katia pouts, blasts hip-hop, expertly pushes Maggie's buttons and manages to turn the 11th-hour writing of her long-put-off essay into yet another chance to enumerate her mother's flaws and failures.

This can, as you'd imagine, be rough going emotionally. Maybe that's why Bondi puts so much over-the-top energy into trying to make Maggie an appealing kook. The comedic quirks, however, simply make Maggie seem unhinged. She bursts into vintage song, concedes that she might be "a retard" and then ludicrously prances around, is so wildly bombastic that Katia often seems, by contrast, to be part of the furniture. Bondi is much better in the play's waning, tender moments. But by then the subtlety is too little, too late. Middleton, a college senior at the New World School of the Arts, makes a solid professional debut in Memory House, quietly holding her own against the flashy Bondi. Her Katia can be piercingly cruel and has clearly been spoiled. But Middleton finds the little-girl confusion and vulnerability in the character, and as she finally reads Katia's essay to Maggie, her delivery of its vivid sensory memories calls forth a long-lost world. I must share, as a public service, that opening night in the rented Cooper City Theatre space was like watching a play from one of the circles of Hell. How hot was it? Several women resorted to portable battery-operated fans in a futile attempt to stay cool. And you thought candy wrappers and cellphones were the curse of contemporary theater."

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