by Patrick White
Bridge Street Theatre‘s World Premiere production of Michelle Carter’s boozy & woozy, country & western torch song of a mother/daughter play will stone you gently and rouse you with welcome spikes of acerbic hilarity.
Katie (Barbara Pitts) has just lost her job as an online professor lecturing on literature to a hundred black squares on Zoom as she refers to her students with their online cameras and sound turned off. “It’s the world’s most depressing Advent calendar” she comments.
She has been teaching for 28 years but her interest and zest for instruction have clearly faded.
She is our direct address guide and helpfully informs us that though there’s a character in the play over 65, the play is not about dementia. She dutifully checks in on her immobile mother whom she has had to book at a board and care house with a holistic healer. Her mother Liza (Amanda Duarte) is, in a word, a pill. She is caustic, cutting and frequently quite funny.
The healer portentously announcing this is Liza’s last night on earth and administering some elixir wort, the two women take a time traveling journey back in time to 1958 San Francisco and Duarte is now playing Liza as a 16-year-old while Pitts takes her hair down and plays Liza’s blowzy mother.
The San Francisco single room occupancy set is revealed from a half curtain that bifurcated the stage being drawn. Efficiently lowdown set design by Joce Lai, lighting by Jo Averill-Snell and costumes by Michelle Rogers. The mother and child reunion comes after Liza has spent her whole life in foster homes.
Liza is aghast at the living circumstances with a bathroom down the hall. “I’m clean!” her mother shrieks. Liza retreats to her book until the arrival of Clyde (Phil Mansfield), mother’s country and western singing cowboy arrives and proposes. Liza escapes to the amusement park and eventually seals her fate with a carny.
Amanda Duarte as Kate and Barbara Pitts as Liz in Michelle Carter’s “Darlin’,” directed by Katy Early, at Bridge Street Theatre. Photo Timothy Dunn. 
Amanda Duarte as Kate and Barbara Pitts as Liz in Michelle Carter’s “Darlin’,” directed by Katy Early, at Bridge Street Theatre. Photo Timothy Dunn. 
Barbara Pitts as Liz and Phil Mansfield as Clyde in Michelle Carter’s “Darlin’,” directed by Katy Early, at Bridge Street Theatre. Photo Timothy Dunn. 
Barbara Pitts as Liz and Phil Mansfield as Clyde in Michelle Carter’s “Darlin’,” directed by Katy Early, at Bridge Street Theatre. Photo Timothy Dunn. 
Barbara Pitts as Liz and Phil Mansfield as Clyde in Michelle Carter’s “Darlin’,” directed by Katy Early, at Bridge Street Theatre. Photo Timothy Dunn. 
Set by Joyce Lai for Michelle Carter’s “Darlin’,” directed by Katy Early, at Bridge Street Theatre. 
The play’s circumstances felt unremittingly grim and would have been unbearable if not for the playwright’s flinty humor, director Katy Early’s focused and energetic direction and magic wrought by this terrific cast. All three actors play at least two roles and they are phenomenally good at this.
Michelle Carter has miraculously transformed a picture she held of her mother in this semi-autobiographical piece into one that shimmers with compassion and hope. It is a powerfully redemptive journey. You will be charmed by the talent on the page and the stage.
Bridge Street Theatre presents the world premiere of “Darlin'” by Michelle Carter, directed by Katy Early, November 5-15, 2026. CAST: Barbara Pitts as Katie, Amanda Duarte as Liza, and Phil Mansfield as Clyde. CREATIVE TEAM: Set design by Joyce Lai, lighting design by Jo Averill-Snell, costumes design by Michelle Rogers, sound design by Evdoxia Ragkou, stage management by Stacey Dobos.
Performances Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 7:00 p.m. and Sundays at 2:00 p.m. Thursday, November 5, at 7:00 p.m. is a pay-what-you-wanna preview. For performances November 6–15, tickets are $30 for adults and $25 for students. $10 student rush tickets are available at the door, subject to availability. Bridge Street Theatre is located at 44 West Bridge Street, Catskill, NY 12414.
Tickets and information: bridgest.org/darlin/