There’s a lot of failed communication among the troubled characters in “The Good Mother,” about a single mother with a disabled daughter. But the biggest failure is playwright Francine Volpe’s inability to tell us what’s going on in this maddeningly oblique “thriller,” now getting its world premiere by the New Group.
Gretchen Mol stars as 33-year-old Larissa, who’s barely making ends meet while raising her autistic 4-year-old. The opening scene finds her preparing for a date with Jonathan (Darren Goldstein), a trucker she’s met the night before, while giving detailed instructions to Angus (Eric Nelsen), the Goth teen she’s asked to baby-sit.
“Sometimes people just need to be touched,” La-rissa tells the monosyllabic teen as she sits beside him in a skimpy robe while applying her makeup. When she and her trucker return later and start canoodling on the couch, the teenager comes downstairs and is embarrassed to find them.
The resulting chain of events includes Angus briefly peeping on the couple through the living-room window and Larissa’s suspicion that he did something — just what is never specified — to her child. This leads to a painful confrontation with Angus’ father, Joel (Mark Blum), the therapist with whom Larissa may or may not have had an inappropriate relationship as a teen, and who’s now accused of sleeping with one of his patients.
Punctuated by a series of revelations — the trucker’s cryptic admissions about a “misunderstanding” he had in the service, an appearance by Larissa’s former boyfriend Buddy (Alfredo Narciso, who doesn’t get to do much) — the story meanders on.
The suspense, such as it is, stems from the vagaries of Mol’s character, whose true nature is never clear. Despite the stunning actress’ subtle, complex performance — in form-fitting clothes by fashion designer Cynthia Rowley — the play remains stubbornly inert.
Scott Elliott’s overly subdued direction is no help: He seems to have encouraged the actors, especially the normally reliable Blum (“The Best Man”), to mumble their lines in a barely discernible monotone.
By the time the play grinds to an end, we don’t know whether Larissa is a good mother, a deeply troubled soul or both. But after 100 torpid, intermissionless minutes, we don’t much care.