Quiet strength: A mother’s unwavering devotion inspires Northlight’s ‘Mary Jane’

“Mary Jane” — 3 stars

Maternal strength, perseverance and unwavering devotion propel “Mary Jane,” Amy Herzog’s earnest, understated drama in its Chicago-area premiere at Northlight Theatre.

Rooted in Herzog’s personal experience — her daughter Frances was born with a neuromuscular disorder and died at 11 — the often wrenching play centers on the titular single mother whose 2½-year-old son, Alex, has a seizure disorder and lung disease. Nonverbal and unable to walk, Alex (who we neither see nor hear) requires 24-hour care that Mary Jane (nice, nuanced work by Lucy Carapetyan) struggles to provide while working full-time at a real estate office.

The first half of the intermissionless play unfolds in Mary Jane’s spartan, one-bedroom apartment in Queens, New York (the set is by A Inn Doo, Lonnae Hickman designed the properties). As befits a space where caregiving is the priority, the décor is utilitarian with pill bottles and nutritional supplements crowding the kitchen countertop. Bins, a plastic rolling cart and over-the-door organizers hold other medical supplies. In the second half, the action moves to the similarly nondescript hospital where Mary Jane and Alex spend weeks on end.

Mary Jane is not alone. She has support from a network of women, caregivers mostly, played with understated precision by Mary Beth Fisher, Elana Elyce, Dara Cameron and Kaylah Marie Crosby, all of whom take on multiple roles.

Fisher bookends the play, first as building super Ruthie, who appears in the first scene to fix Mary Jane’s clogged drain and warn her about carrying tension in her body. She returns in the final scene as Tenkei, a Buddhist chaplain and calming presence.

Elyce plays two health care professionals: the warmhearted home care nurse Sherry and the more clinical Dr. Toros, whose contrasting approaches suit Alex’s circumstances.

Cameron plays Brianne, the overwhelmed new mom of an infant with profound disabilities who seeks advice from Mary Jane about how to obtain services for her child. Late in the play, Cameron returns as Chaya, a stoical mother of seven deftly navigating the latest of her daughter’s many hospitalizations.

Crosby initially appears as Sherry’s niece Amelia, who encounters Alex on the day he has a grand mal seizure. We experience the emergency through Crosby’s panic-stricken Amelia. Standing outside Alex’s offstage bedroom, Amelia frantically calls 911 as a chorus of medical equipment alarms and the frantic voices of Mary Jane and Sherry convey the near-fatal emergency unfolding within. (The unsettling cacophony comes courtesy of sound designer Christopher Kriz.) Late in the play, Crosby returns as music therapist Kat, whose song comforts the little boy and his mom.

While the ending was abrupt and underwhelming, I found the character symmetry particularly satisfying. Even more, I appreciated that Herzog and director Georgette Verdin resisted the urge to oversentimentalize or idealize Mary Jane, whom the engaging Carapetyan infuses with indefatigable good spirits. That is until the mask slips to reveal the exhaustion and desperation she works so hard to suppress.

Deeply empathetic, “Mary Jane” is a quiet play about quiet strength, the kind of strength a devoted mother must possess to effectively advocate for her child. Some might call that heroism. Mary Jane would call it love.

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Location: Northlight Theatre, North Shore Center for the Performing Arts, 9501 Skokie Blvd., Skokie, (847) 673-6300, northlight.org

Showtimes: 1 and 7:30 p.m. Wednesday; 7:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday; 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday; and 2:30 p.m. Sunday through Feb. 22

Tickets: $46-$98

Running time: About 95 minutes, no intermission

Parking: In the lot adjacent to the theater

Rating: For teens and older